Cranberry Thanksgiving activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Cranberry Thanksgiving Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Wende Devlin’s book. Read aloud the December 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 connections

☐ comparing and contrasting

☐ synthesizing

☐ analyzing character

☐ analyzing setting

☐ plot | problem and solution

☐ cause and effect

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ forgiveness

☐ prejudice

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ adjectives

☐ compound words

☐ homophones

☐ italics

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Cranberry Thanksgiving tells the story of a young girl named Maggie and her Grandmother. In preparation for Thanksgiving, Grandmother prepares her famous cranberry bread. Her bread is so famous that she must hide the recipe so others can’t use it. Each Thanksgiving, Maggie and Grandmother each invite someone to dinner. Grandmother chose to invite a well-dressed man staying at the local hotel. Maggie decided to invite her friend Mr. Whiskers, who Grandmother is not fond of. At dinner, Maggie sees that one of the men has found the recipe. Grandmother assumes it is Mr. Whiskers and is shocked to learn it was her guest, Mr. Horace. She is surprised to learn that Mr. Whiskers was actually invited to help keep an eye on Mr. Horace. In the end, Grandmother has a change of heart towards Mr. Whiskers and they enjoy the rest of their Thanksgiving feast.

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