The Hat activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Hat Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Jan Brett's book. Read aloud the winter 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

☐ point of view

☐ analyzing illustrations

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ identifying genre

☐ sequencing

☐ cause and effect

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ teasing

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ plural nouns

☐ quotation marks

☐ homophones

☐ onomatopoeia

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

Jan Brett’s book, The Hat, tells the story of a hedgehog named Hedgie. One day, while Lisa is out hanging her clothes to dry, the wind blows one of her socks away. Hedgie comes across the sock and pokes his head inside. Unfortunately, the sock becomes stuck on Hedgie’s head. He walks around the farm trying to get the sock off and runs into other farm animals. Each animal laughs at the sight of Hedgie wearing a hat. Although their laughter hurts Hedgie’s feelings, he gives logical explanations for wearing the hat: it’s cozy, it’ll keep him warm in the winter, and dry in the rain.

When Lisa realizes her sock is missing, she runs after Hedgie to take the sock off. As she returns it to the line, she is surprised to find the rest of her clothes missing! The other animals liked the idea of Hedgie’s hat and decided to find their own.

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