Elmer activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Elmer Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on David McKee's book. Read aloud the diverse 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

☐ summarizing and retelling

☐ point of view

☐ asking and answering questions

☐ identifying the main idea

☐ figurative language

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ diversity

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ action verbs

☐ adjectives

☐ quotation marks

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The story Elmer by David McKee is about a colorful elephant. Elmer is not elephant-colored, he is patchwork. He always makes the other elephants laugh and smile, but he thinks it is because they are laughing at him. One day, Elmer slips off into the jungle and finds a berry bush. Elmer shakes the berries to the ground and uses the juice to turn himself elephant-colored. When he returns to the herd, the other elephants are not smiling or laughing. Elmer shouts out BOO to surprise them. The elephants start to smile and laugh uncontrollably, and a rain cloud opens up and washes away the berry juice. The other elephants say that they knew it must have been him that shouted BOO because he is so funny. The other elephants declare that every year there will be an Elmer’s Day where the other elephants will decorate themselves and parade and Elmer will wear berry juice.

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