Ribbet and Rabbit
Reading Comprehension Activity
When a big storm blows into the garden, two small animals take shelter together and become friends. Students will read the passage and answer follow-up questions about vocabulary and other story elements. This passage contains the following Dolch sight words: stop, going, his, rain, and wind.
Topic(s): Humor. Skill(s): Character Traits, Fact & Opinion, Context Clues. Genre(s): Prose
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Ribbet was a very small toad. He lived in a shady corner of the garden where there were large horseradish leaves to shelter him from the sun. Ribbet was brown with dark spots. He was very hard to see in the grass. Ribbet was hopping around the garden looking for flower petals to bring home to decorate his home. He liked orange petals best and wanted to the gather marigold petals early in the morning before it got too hot.
Ribbet was going to the flower patch when it began to rain. Ribbet didn’t like rain at all, and this looked like a big storm. The sky was very dark, and the wind blew hard. Ribbet hopped as fast as he could to get to his house before the rain ruined his flower petals.
CRACK!
Lightning flashed in the sky, and Ribbet dropped his petals. He hopped toward the cucumber vines and hid beneath a wide, green leaf.
Just as Ribbet reached the leaf, a baby bunny hopped toward the same safe, dry spot. The brown bunny was much larger than Ribbet, but he could tell the bunny was still a baby because his ears will still very small. His pink nose twitched. The bunny was shaking.
“Can we share this spot?” asked Ribbet. “I don’t want to get wet.”
The bunny nodded. He was shaking all over.
Ribbet could see that the bunny was scared. He hopped a little closer and sat down next to the bunny’s front paw. “It’s just a thunderstorm,” Ribbet said. “It will stop soon.”
“I want my mama,” said the bunny. He began to cry.
Ribbet didn’t know what to do. He was too small to give the bunny a hug, so he patted his paw with his front foot. “She’ll be back to get you when the rain stops,” said Ribbet. “What’s your name?”
“Rabbit.”
“That’s funny. My name’s Ribbet. That’s almost the same!” RIbbet laughed.
Rabbit smiled. Ribbet could tell he was starting to feel better.
Ribbet and Rabbit sat under the cucumber leaves and talked until the storm passed. They had a lot in common. By the end of the day, they were the best of friends.
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