The Legend of the Poinsettia activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Legend of the Poinsettia Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Tomie dePaola's Christmas 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

☐ analyzing character

☐ analyzing setting

☐ making connections

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ identifying genre

☐ identifying theme | message | moral

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ responsibility

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ proper nouns

☐ adjectives

☐ prefixes

☐ suffixes

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The Legend of the Poinsettia takes place in a village in Mexico. The main character is a young girl named Lucida. As the village prepares for Christmas, Lucida’s mother is asked to weave a new blanket for the manger scene. They are very proud to do this and Lucida is happy to help. However, as it gets closer to Christmas Eve, Lucida’s mother becomes sick and must stay in the hospital. Everyone is disappointed that the blanket will not be completed in time. Lucida tries to fix the blanket but it just gets tangled. She is so upset that she has nothing to bring to the church so she hides outside.

An old woman approaches Lucida and tells her everything will be okay. She teaches Lucida that the gift she brings does not matter, it is the thought that is important. Lucida gathers a bundle of weeds and brings them to the church. Everyone is surprised to see the weeds bloom into poinsettia. From that day forward the poinsettia flowers bloom every Christmas Eve in Mexico.

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