DREAMERS activities, worksheets & lesson plan ideas

 This DREAMERS 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, DREAMERS by Yuyi Morales, 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

☐ SUMMARIZE / RETELL

☐ ANALYZING ILLUSTRATIONS

☐ PLOT | PROBLEM - SOLUTION

☐ IDENTIFY THE MAIN IDEA

☐ AUTHOR’S PURPOSE

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ VERB TENSE

☐ IRREGULAR VERBS

☐ PREFIXES

☐ HOMOPHONES

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ TRANSITIONS

☐ PERSEVERANCE

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Yuyi Morales’ book, Dreamers, tells the story of a mother who immigrated to a new home with her young child. They pack a backpack full of gifts and make the journey to their new home. It is challenging for them at first. The people in the new country speak a different language. It is difficult for them to understand and they make a lot of mistakes. 

One day, the two discover a library. By checking out books at the library, they start to learn the new language. Overtime, they are able to write and speak the language. They never gave up on their dream of becoming something greater, something they haven’t imagined yet.

Dreamers is a story of perseverance and dreaming for a better life.

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