THE GIVING TREE activities and lesson plan ideas

Save yourself time and engage your students with these The Giving Tree activities. This jam-packed book companion is quick and easy to use - Just print and go!

Read on to learn more about all that is included in this standards-based interactive read aloud packet based on the children’s book, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

TO SAVE YOU TIME, WE'VE DONE ALL OF THE WORK FOR YOU!

1. We chose vocabulary words & kid-friendly definitions.
2. We selected mentor sentences & specific grammar skills for each.
3. We wrote 30 book-based writing prompts (that cover 10 genres of writing).
4. We identified an SEL focus / character education topic based on events in the story.
5. We constructed strategy-based reading comprehension questions and created no-prep, print-and-go reader response worksheets.

YOU ONLY NEED TO DO 3 QUICK & EASY STEPS:

STEP 1: PLAN

Simply customize your The Giving Tree lesson plans using the ideas in the teaching guide and choose from the 15 standards-based activities.

STEP 2: PREP

Prep can be as simple as printing the activity pages (or assigning the included digital version) and finding a free video of the book being read aloud online.

OPTIONAL: If you want to dive deeper into a book study, you’ll find our teaching ideas and slides make it easy to create mini-lessons, anchor charts, and slideshows.

STEP 3: TEACH

Engage your students with an interactive read aloud by reading or streaming the picture book. Practice reading comprehension strategies with text-based discussion questions. We even wrote the The Giving Tree comprehension questions for you!

Some teachers like to assemble and assign independent work packets. Others prefer to dive deeper into the story with vocabulary, grammar, SEL, and writing lessons that can span over several days.

THE GIVING TREE BOOK COMPANION FOCUSES ON:

◼️READING SKILLS

☐ ANALYZING CHARACTER

☐ CAUSE AND EFFECT

☐ IDENTIFYING THEME | MESSAGE | MORAL

☐ MAKING PREDICTIONS

☐ SEQUENCING

◼️GRAMMAR

☐ MULTIPLE MEANING WORDS

☐ IRREGULAR VERBS

☐ ACTION VERBS

☐ PRONOUNS

◼️SEL

☐ KINDNESS

THE GIVING TREE SUMMARY

Shel Silverstein’s book, The Giving Tree, tells the story of a tree that loves a boy. When the boy was young, he would visit the tree each day. The boy would climb her branches, eat her apples and rest in her shade. It made the tree happy to spend time with the boy.

As the boy grew older, he would spend a lot of time away from the tree. One day, the boy visited the tree and she was happy to see him. The boy asked the tree for money but she had none. The tree suggested the boy take her apples and sell them for money so he did. This made the tree happy.

Time passed and eventually the boy returned to the tree. This time he asked the tree for a house. The tree told the boy to take her branches and build a house, so he did. It made the tree happy to help the boy but she missed him. Years went by and when the boy returned he was much older. This time he wanted a boat. The tree told the boy to cut down her trunk and build a boat but she was not very happy.

When the boy eventually returned, he was much older. The tree was sad because she had nothing else to give the boy. However, the boy said all he wanted was a place to rest because he was tired. The tree suggested the boy sit on her stump and rest. This made her very happy.

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