The Empty Pot activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Empty Pot Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Demi'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

☐ summarize / retell

☐ analyzing character

☐ making connections

☐ identifying genre

☐ author's purpose

☐ cause and effect

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ honesty

☐ perseverance

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ compound words

☐ contractions

☐ action verbs

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The story The Empty Pot is about a boy named Ping. Ping loves flowers and everything that he plants blooms beautifully.

One day, the Emperor announces that the person who will succeed him to the throne will be the one who blooms the best flower out of seeds that the Emperor gives them. All of the children in the land go to the palace to get their seeds and set off to plant them in hopes of becoming the next Emperor.

Ping plants his seed and is surprised when nothing blooms. After a year’s time, still, nothing has bloomed and he has to present his empty pot to the Emperor. Ping is ashamed when he sees that all the other boys and girls have beautiful flowers.

However, the Emperor announces that Ping will be the next Emperor! He says that the seeds he gave all the boys and girls were cooked and unable to grow flowers. Ping was the only one who was honest. Students will learn a lesson about honesty as they read this book.

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