Memoirs of a Goldfish activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Memoirs of a Goldfish Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Devin Scillian's book. Read aloud the 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

☐ making predictions

☐ making inferences

☐ comparing and contrasting

☐ analyzing setting

☐ point of view

☐ sequencing

☐ plot | problem and solution

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ friendship

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ irregular verbs

☐ nouns

☐ articles

☐ antonyms

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Goldfish is very happy alone in his bowl, he has plenty of room to swim around. However, one day the bowl starts to get more crowded. First came Mr. Bubbles, a scuba diver that would not talk. Next, were plants and a snail named Mervin who liked to eat slime. Soon after came Cha-Cha the angelfish and two guppies named Rhoda and Clark. Goldfish no longer had room to swim! Frustrated that everyone was taking over his tank, Goldfish yelled at the other sea creatures.

The next day, Goldfish was taken out of the bowl and put into a smaller one alone. It didn’t take long before he started to miss and worry about his friends. Thankfully, he was soon moved out of the little bowl into a big, new tank with all of his friends who he has started to consider family. Goldfish even meets a new friend, Gracie, who looks just like him.

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