Drum Dream Girl activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Drum Dream Girl Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Margarita Engle'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

☐ summarizing and retelling

☐ analyzing setting

☐ analyzing illustrations

☐ rhyme, repetition and rhythm

☐ identifying theme, message or moral

☐ figurative language

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ equality

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ action verbs

☐ plural nouns

☐ compound words

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The book Drum Dream Girl takes place on an island where music is a big part of daily life. On this island, it is believed that only boys should be allowed to play the drums. The main character in this story is a little girl, who loves the sound of drums and dreams of playing them someday. She spends her time listening to men play the drums and imagining herself playing them, too. One day, she plays the drums for her sisters and they are very impressed. However, her father hears and was very upset to see his daughter playing the drums. Sadly, the girl must keep dreaming about the drums. Her father eventually decides to take her to a music teacher who can decide if she should be able to play. The music teacher is so impressed with the girl and helps her become an even better drummer. When she is good enough, the drum dream girl plays her drums at a cafe. Everyone begins singing and dancing while she plays. This helps the people on the island believe that girls should be able to play the drums and dream just like the boys do.

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