TRUMAN activities, worksheets & lesson plan ideas

 This TRUMAN Activities and Interactive Read Aloud Resource Book Companion Packet includes lesson plans, reading comprehension questions, vocabulary, grammar, phonics, writing and word study activities with both printable and digital student pages. 

Following an interactive read aloud of the picture book, TRUMAN by David McCullough, choose from the included collection of either printable activities or go paperless and use the digital activities to practice standards-based skills. We've even included editable teaching slides themed to match the book!

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:

◼️READING STRATEGIES

☐ MAKING INFERENCES

☐ MAKING PREDICTIONS

☐ ANALYZING CHARACTER

☐ MAKING CONNECTIONS

☐ PLOT | PROBLEM - SOLUTION

☐ SEQUENCING

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ COMPOUND WORDS

☐ BASE WORDS

☐ ONOMATOPOEIA

☐ INTERJECTIONS

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ FEELINGS

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Truman the turtle lived with his Sarah high above all the honking, beeping, and shrieking in the city below. He loved living with Sarah because she was pensive and peaceful just like he was.

One morning, Sarah ate a big banana, put on a new sweater, clipped a bow into her hair, and carried a new backpack. Before she left, Sarah gave Truman some extra green beans and told him to be brave. Truman waited and waited for Sarah to come home but when Truman realized she had been gone longer than ever before, he decided to go out and look for her. Truman had never left his tank before. He used the three big rocks in his tank to climb out. Leaving the tank was unsettling for Truman. The house looked so big to him and although he could hear all the noises from the street, he couldn’t see them anymore. 

As Truman made his way across the giant rug, he heard some noises out in the hall. Suddenly, Sarah opened the door and came running inside. She was surprised to see Truman and picked him up right away. Truman was proud of act of bravery and Sarah returned him to his tank. One day, Sarah even took him to school one day for show and tell!

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