The Dot activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Dot Assistant Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Peter H. Reynolds' 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 inferences

☐ making predictions

☐ analyzing character

☐ analyzing illustrations

☐ making connections

☐ cause and effect

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ growth mindset

☐ positive self-talk

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ interjections

☐ punctuation

☐ quotation marks

☐ apostrophes

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

The Dot tells the story of Vashti, a young girl who thinks she cannot draw. As Vashti sits in art class, her paper is empty and she is clearly frustrated. Her teacher encourages her to make a start by making a mark and signing her name.

The following week when Vashti walks into art class she sees that her dot drawing is behind the teacher’s desk in a fancy gold frame. When she looks at her art, Vashti thinks she can make an even better dot than that. She starts making all big dots, little dots, and all different colored dots.

When it is time for the school art show, everyone is interested in Vashti’s dot drawings. A young boy admiring her pictures mentions that he wishes he could draw like that. Vashti encourages him to draw a line and sign his name. 

This heartwarming story is a great way to introduce growth mindset to students!

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