Be Kind activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Be Kind Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Pat Zietlow Miller’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

☐ summarizing and retelling

☐ analyzing character

☐ making connections

☐ author's purpose

☐ identifying theme, message or moral

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ patience

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ irregular verbs

☐ punctuation

☐ capitalization

☐ base words

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

One day at snack the main character’s classmate, Tanisha, spilled grape juice all over herself. Everyone laughed except the main character. She was about to but remembered her mother always tells her to be kind. She tries to think of something she can do to make Tamika feel better. Should she pour grape juice all over herself? The main character starts to think about what being kind really is.

She lists all different examples of kindness, things that are easy to do. You can call someone by their name, ask someone to play, and pay attention to others. In the end, the main character decides to sit near Tanisha during art and paint a picture for her. She realizes that the small acts of kindness she can do might encourage others to do them too, and they will spread all around the world.

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