Linus The Little Yellow Pencil activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Linus the Little Yellow Pencil Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Scott Magoon’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

☐ analyzing character

☐ analyzing illustrations

☐ making connections

☐ plot | problem and solution

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ positive self-talk

☐ growth mindset

☐ bullying

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ multiple meaning words

☐ quotation marks

☐ suffixes

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

Linus is a pencil who loves to draw. He decides to enter into an art contest and had his eye on the grand prize. Ernie, Linus’s eraser, does not think that any of the drawings Linus is creating are good enough to win them the prize. 

Ernie continuously criticizes Linus’s drawings and causes Linus to want to quit being an artist. Linus has an encounter with Smudge, and Smudge convinces him to keep drawing. Linus and Ernie go on to draw beautiful pictures together. 

Students will learn about growth mindset and positive self talk as they hear the story of how a pencil learned to believe in himself.

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