JESSICA activities and lesson plan ideas

This JESSICA 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, JESSICA by Kevin Henkes, 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

☐ MAKING INFERENCES

☐ MAKING CONNECTIONS

☐ MAKING PREDICTIONS

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ COMMON AND PROPER NOUNS

☐ ACTION VERBS

☐ COMPOUND WORDS

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ COPING

☐ FRIENDSHIP

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The story, Jessica, by Kevin Henkes, is about a girl named Ruthie. Ruthie doesn’t have a brother or sister or pets, but she does have her imaginary friend Jessica. Jessica and Ruthie do everything together. They go to the moon, to the playground, to grandma’s and eat, read, and build together.

When it is time for Ruthie to start kindergarten, her parents say that Jessica should stay home. However, Jessica goes to school with Ruthie, but Jessica wants to go home once she gets there. Ruthie is spending so much time keeping her busy that she is missing everything happening with the real kids at school.

At the end of the story, a real girl named Jessica asks Ruthie if she wants to be her partner. The two girls become great friends and Ruthie doesn’t miss her imaginary friend Jessica.

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