Every year on Thanksgiving, there is a big parade. It has big balloons in it. Last year, there was a big balloon problem.
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Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images; Derek French/Shutterstock (Deflated); Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Macy’s, Inc. (Bluey)
Pop Goes Bluey!
Could the big balloon be fixed by Thanksgiving?
By Meg Richardson
From the October/November 2025 Issue
Learning Objective: Children will identify the problem and solution in a nonfiction story about the Bluey balloon popping.
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Activities
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Skills Activities
Answer Key
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More About the Article
English Language Arts Focus
Problem and solution
Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
Implementation
- Whole group
- Small group
Pairings and Text Connections
- From the Storyworks 1 archive: “Word Play: One Big Baby Yoda” (October/November 2023)
- Suggested book: Balloons Over Broadway: The Inspiring True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade by Melissa Sweet
Before-Reading Resources
- Video: Making Macy’s Parade Balloons (5 minutes) Learn about how Thanksgiving Day parade balloons are made.
Suggested Reading Focus
Problem and solution/prediction (20 minutes)
- Before reading this article, have children do a picture walk. What do they think it will be about? What do they think will happen?
- Read the first two sections aloud while students follow along in their magazines. Before reading the third section (Hooray for Bluey!), ask students what the problem was. Then ask them to predict, or guess, what the solution will be. Explain that the solution is how the problem is fixed.
- Then read the last section. Have students share with a partner how the problem was fixed. Was it what they expected to happen?
After-Reading Skills Practice
- Skills: grammar; comprehension (15 minutes)
Text-to-Speech