November can sometimes feel rushed between the excitement of Halloween and the upcoming magic of the Christmas season, but it has plenty of exciting themes of its own to integrate into your classroom! From Thanksgiving to World Kindness Day to the beautiful change of the seasons, there are plenty of engaging themes to choose from for your November literacy lessons!

When you lean into thematic units and lessons, you want your students to be excited about the themed content, but you also need them to master grade-level skills and standards without fluff. That’s what makes these November literacy lessons with passages and picture books the perfect combination! I LOVE integrating beautiful picture books with engaging and high-interest informational texts.

I’ve created unique lessons that combine a high-quality, skill-focused passage with carefully selected picture books.

November Literacy Lessons Using Reading Comprehension Passages

I created Literacy Skill of the Week as a yearlong spiral review resource for teaching reading comprehension and literacy skills. It builds literacy skills in a way that’s fun for students and easy to prep! 

The November Reading Comprehension Passages feature five unique, thoughtfully written passages (a mix of fiction and nonfiction) that weave in seasonal themes while targeting key reading and language skills.

On its own, the November Literacy Skill of the Week Covers:

• Reading Skill Focus: Cause and Effect, Theme
• Figurative Language: Puns and Oxymorons
• Grammar Focus: Types of Sentences (Declarative, Interrogative, Exclamatory)
• Writing Focus: Combining information from two nonfiction texts.

Each passage on its own is a ready-to-go lesson, but the real seasonal magic happens when you use picture books to extend each lesson!

November Picture Books to Extend Learning

Let’s dive into each passage to see how these picture book pairings can create comprehensive lessons. All links below are Amazon affiliate links for easy browsing.

Special Day: Thanksgiving
Genre: Fiction
Literacy Skill Focus: Puns and Oxymorons and Author’s Purpose

This passage helps students practice making inferences and character perspective, oxymorons/puns, and the author’s purpose. 

To extend the passage, pair it with You’re the Apple of My Pie (Amazon affiliate link). This book is packed with wordplay, making it the perfect companion to explore figurative language – and kids just LOVE a good, silly pun! 

Special Day: World Kindness Day
Genre: Fiction
Literacy Skill Focus: Cause and Effect and Theme

This passage helps students practice main idea and summary, cause and effect, and theme. 

To extend the passage, pair it with Each Kindness (Amazon affiliate link). This story illustrates the ripple effects of actions, providing a rich text to solidify how a single action (the cause) leads to an outcome (the effect) and how those events reveal the story’s overall theme of compassion.

The Cozy Season (Nonfiction) – Types of Sentences

This passage helps students practice cause and effect, author’s perspective, types of sentences, and perspective. 

To extend the passage, pair it with Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn (Amazon affiliate link). This book’s descriptive language offers an engaging way to practice identifying and classifying the four sentence types (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, imperative) in an authentic text.

Animals and Acorns
Genre: Informational
Literacy Skill Focus: Integrating information from two nonfiction texts

This passage helps students practice the main idea, combining information, summarizing, and informational text. 

To extend the passage, pair it with Acorn was a Little Wild (Amazon affiliate link). This pairing allows students to use the picture book as a second source to compare and contrast facts about animals and their winter preparation habits.

Preparing for Winter
Genre: Informational
Literacy Skill Focus: Integrating information from two nonfiction texts

This passage helps students practice the main idea, combining information, summarizing, and informational text. 

To extend the passage, pair it with Sleep Tight Farm and Fletcher and the Falling Leaves (Amazon affiliate links). Using both books challenges students to synthesize information from two distinct sources, one focusing on human preparation (the farm) and one focusing on nature, to build a complete picture of how the world gets ready for winter. This is perfect for practicing the essential skill of synthesizing details from varied sources.

If you’re ready to simplify your November planning, grab the November Reading Comprehension Passages here!

More November Literacy Lessons

Visit these posts for even more seasonal ideas to add to your November lesson plans!

• November Read Alouds and Related Seasonal Activities
• Thanksgiving Math and Literacy Lessons
• Thanksgiving Writing Activity