Alma and How She Got Her Name activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Alma and How She Got Her Name Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Juana Martinez-Neal'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

☐ analyzing character

☐ summarize and retell

☐ making connections

☐ ask and answer questions

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ positive self talk

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ pronouns

☐ quotation marks

☐ compound words

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Alma and How She Got Her Name tells the story of a young girl named Alma. Alma has a very long name and is frustrated by how long it is. It doesn’t fit on a piece of paper, and she has to tape an extra strip of paper to the bottom so it can fit. She goes to her dad to complain about how long it is, and instead he tells her the story of her name. She learns that each part of her name represents one of her relatives. Each name was chosen specifically for her to represent the great qualities each relative had. Alma learns to love her name as she hears the story of each relative. At the end of the story, Alma’s dad tells her that he chose the name Alma just for her and that it isn’t a name that someone else in the family had. The name is for her to use to write her own story.

Students will love hearing the story about how Alma got her name, and think about the origin of their own names.

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