A Letter to My Teacher activities and lesson plan ideas

Our A Letter to My Teacher Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Deborah Hopkinson'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 inferences

☐ analyzing character

☐ point of view

☐ analyzing illustrations

☐ identifying the main idea

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ patience

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ action verbs

☐ abstract nouns

☐ contractions

☐ time order words

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

A woman about to start her first job is writing a letter to her second grade teacher. She was the student that showed up on the first day grouchy and soaking wet. The girl did not like school because she had to sit still and was not good at reading or writing. Second grade was the girl’s favorite year in school thanks to her teacher. The teacher always gave her extra help and made learning fun for the students by planting a class garden. Even when the girl shouted out, made mistakes, and got into trouble, the teacher showed her kindness and care.

The story is told through the letter the woman is writing to her teacher, sharing all of her memories. In the end, the reader learns that the girl is about to start her first day as a teacher, inspired by her own second grade teacher.

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