Hair Love activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Hair Love Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Matthew Cherry's book. Read aloud the diverse picture book then use the printables or go paperless with Google or Seesaw to practice standards-based skills.

Matthew Cherry’s book, HAIR LOVE is a sweet story about a little girl and her dad. It is a great way to start discussions about patience, empathy, and family.

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:

◼️ READING STRATEGIES

☐ summarizing and retelling

☐ analyzing character

☐ point of view

☐ making connections

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ patience

☐ empathy

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ commas

☐ types of sentences

☐ compound words

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

Zuri loves her hair! She loves the way it makes her feel. She feels likes a princess when it is in braids, and a superhero when it is in puffs. There is nothing her hair can’t do!

One day, Zuri needs an extra special hairstyle. She sets off to create the perfect look. Her dad volunteers to help, and he creates many different hairstyles for her. Through trial and error and hard work, they eventually create the perfect one! Zuri is ready for her special day.

Students will love this story about a girl who loves her hair. They will start to think about the things they love about themselves, and what makes them special.

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