The Balloons

The Balloons is a humorous and realistic fiction story about different coloured hot air balloons going down and landing in the middle of funny places! Readers gain information from the text, illustrations, storyboard, and thought bubble.

The Balloons uses the sentence stem “The _____ balloon is going down.” Illustrations match the text. The story includes triggering in questions. There are critical thinking questions to guide the reader. A teacher guide for reading the text and visual information is provided for teachers to draw students’ attention to illustrations, starting points, and thought bubble. There is a high frequency word list within an illustration at the end of the story. An activity on drawing a picture with a caption of themselves in a hot air balloon is provided for teachers to extend students’ learning.

Readers develop vocabulary with high-frequency words (down). Focus on word differentiation by having them locate focus words in the high-frequency word list illustration. Opportunities arise to focus on initial consonant p (purple).

This title is from the Sails Literacy series. Hook readers and ignite their curiosity - over 850 levelled texts with bright, colourful, sophisticated designs.