SWIMMY activities, worksheets & lesson plan ideas

This SWIMMY 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, SWIMMY by Leo Lionni, 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

☐ VISUALIZING

☐ SUMMARIZE/RETELL

☐ MAKING CONNECTIONS

☐ ANALYZING ILLUSTRATIONS  

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ ADJECTIVES

☐ ACTION VERBS

☐ PLURAL NOUNS

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ TEAMWORK

☐ LEADERSHIP

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The story Swimmy by Leo Lionni is about a fish named Swimmy. The school of fish that Swimmy lives with gets eaten by a tuna fish at the beginning of the story. Swimmy is able to escape because he is the fastest swimmer. He travels through the sea and runs into many different sea creatures.

Swimmy comes across a group of red fish just like the school of fish that he used to belong to. They are hiding in the shade of rocks and weeds to avoid being eaten by a big fish. Swimmy leads them in forming a great big fish by working together as a team. They are able to scare off the big fish when it comes to eat them.

This story teaches kids the importance of teamwork.

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