The Kissing Hand activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Kissing Hand Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Audrey Penn's book. Read aloud the Back to School 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

☐ summarize / retell

☐ analyzing character

☐ making connections

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ ask and answer questions

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ perseverance

☐ compassion

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ plural nouns

☐ suffixes

☐ prepositions

☐ apostrophes

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Chester the raccoon does not want to go to school. He wants to stay at home and be with his mother, play with his friends, play with toys, read his books, and swing on his swing. Mrs. Raccoon tells Chester that sometimes we have to do things that we don’t want to do and can be scary, but that he will love school once he starts.

Chester’s mother teaches him about the kissing hand. She kisses the palm of his hand and says that whenever he feels lonely at school he can hold his palm to his cheek and think ‘Mommy loves you.’ This makes Chester feel a lot better and know that his mother’s love will always be with him.

When it is time to go to school, Chester is ready. He gives his mother her own kissing hand and dances away to school.

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