TeachKind Rescue Stories: Mayflower the Turkey
Stories of people helping animals are all over the internet, and sharing them with your students is an excellent way to encourage kindness both in and out of the classroom. Because most children naturally feel compassion for animals, sharing rescue stories is a great way to engage and motivate different types of learners and encourage them to take action to help end animal abuse.
Each TeachKind Rescue Stories reading comprehension worksheet tells a different animal’s tale of transformation and features key vocabulary words and questions in order to encourage literal, inferential, and evaluative thinking. These worksheets were used in a study that found that students who read passages about having compassion for animals performed significantly better on Common Core–aligned assessments, demonstrating that instructional time need not be sacrificed in order to instill empathy in young people!
This rescue story is about Mayflower, a turkey who was found as a baby at a Pennsylvania auction about to be sent to slaughter for someone’s Thanksgiving dinner. Use his story to promote compassion for all sentient beings this holiday season and beyond.
Be sure to check out Long Island Orchestrating for Nature (LION), the organization that helped rescue Mayflower, as well as Broome Animal Sanctuary and Farm, where he now lives. Use other TeachKind resources to create an entire lesson around this story.
You can use the worksheets below to address the following Common Core English language arts standards:
Grade 6
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.1
Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
Grade 7
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.1
Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
Grade 8
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.1
Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
Be sure to watch Mayflower’s heartwarming video to bring his story to life.
DOWNLOAD MAYFLOWER’S RESCUE STORY READING COMPREHENSION WORKSHEET!
Download this lesson in digital format here!
(Note to teachers: The digital format does not include the answer sheet. To view the answer sheet for grading purposes, please download the PDF version.)
Check out TeachKind’s “Mayflower the Turkey’s” kahoot!
Please share this resource to inspire other teachers to incorporate compassion for animals into their curricula.
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