If I Were President activities and lesson plan ideas

Our If I Were President Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Catherine Stier'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

☐ summarize / retell

☐ analyzing illustrations

☐ ask and answer questions

☐ identifying genre

☐ identifying theme | message | moral

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ compassion

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ articles

☐ verb tense

☐ multiple meaning words

☐ adjectives

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The book If I Were President follows a diverse group of children explaining what their day-to-day life would be like as president. Students will learn about the events like the State of the Union and presidential duties like signing bills into law. Students will get to hear about the different special experiences that come with being president like throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game or having your own private chef.

This book makes a great read-aloud before an election or in honor of President’s Day.

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