The Cool Bean activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Cool Bean Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Jory John's book. Read aloud the picture book then use the printables or go paperless with Google or Seesaw to practice standards-based skills.

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH: 

◼️ READING STRATEGIES

☐ making predictions

☐ comparing and contrasting

☐ point of view

☐ making connections

☐ author's purpose

☐ identifying theme | message } moral

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ feelings

☐ self-esteem

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ prepositions

☐ interjections

☐ ellipses

☐ synonyms

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

Jory John’s book, The Cool Bean, tells the story of a group of beans. The main character is a clumsy bean that is picked last for everything. He admires a group of cool beans, these beans walk with swagger and dress with style. The main character used to be friends with the cool beans last year, but they have grown apart. He misses hanging out with his friends and thinks that their coolness has gotten in the way. This bean thinks he can never be cool.

One day, he drops his tray in the lunchroom. Without saying anything, one of the cool beans comes over and helps him clean it up. Later, when he fell on the playground, one of the cool beans cleans up his cut. These small gestures of kindness boost the bean's confidence and he starts hanging out with the cool beans again.

He learns that the beans’ acts of kindness are what makes them cool, rather than how they look.

THIS COLLECTION OF ACTIVITIES and LESSON IDEAS INCLUDES:

➜ Comprehension Questions categorized by reading strategy; text-dependent
➜ Social-Emotional Learning guidance lesson ideas & discussion topics based on the story
➜ Vocabulary Activities with kid-friendly definitions
➜ Grammar Topics selected to align with the text
➜ Focus Sentences use the book & author's craft as a mentor text to improve writing
➜ Lesson Planner summary, background info and planning space

➜ Story Mapping Printable identify character, setting, problem and solution

➜ Making Words Activity Page use any word from the book

➜ Focus Sentence copy work, identifying elements of the sentence, rewriting)

➜ Design a New Book Cover demonstrate understanding of the text by creating an illustration

➜ Predicting Activity primary-ruled and wider-ruled versions
➜ Summarizing Somebody → Wanted → But → Then → Finally

➜ Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

➜ Cause and Effect analyze how events affect one another

➜ Visualization illustrate visualizations from the story and support thinking with text-based evidence

➜ Making Connections identify text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections

➜ Thematic Writing Paper Use with the Writing Prompts... Makes a Great Bulletin Board

➜ 2 Sequencing Activities First → Next → Then → Last and Beginning → Middle → End

➜ 2 Vocabulary Activities Vocabulary Booklet and Word Mapping

➜ 2 Character Trait Activities listing traits and supporting traits with text-based evidence
➜ 30 Text-Based Writing Prompts 3 prompts for each of the following types of writing:

• narrative
• persuasive / opinion
• descriptive
• expository / informative
• creative / story writing
• procedure / how-to
• list-making
• letter / postcard writing
• poem
• book reviews

INCLUDED DIGITAL ACTIVITIES:

➜ 5 Teaching Slides to use for instruction (add questions, vocabulary, instructions, etc)

➜ 15 Student Pages for use in Google™️ Classroom or as editable files to create customized printables