The Man Who Walked Between the Towers activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Man Who Walked Between the Towers Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Mordicai Gerstein'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

☐ making predictions

☐ identifying genre

☐ point of view

☐ analyzing character

☐ analyzing setting

☐ ask and answer questions

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ perseverance / grit

☐ bravery

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ proper nouns

☐ action verbs

☐ types of sentences

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers tells the story of Philippe, a street performer who walked on a wire between the twin towers in New York City. Philippe loved to ride a unicycle and juggle fiery torches, but his true passion was walking and dancing on a rope between two trees.

One day, he looked at the towers and thought that the space between them would be a perfect place to walk across a wire. He disguised himself and friends as construction workers and snuck into the towers to set up the rope. After a long night of preparation, Philippe walks out onto the wire.

The people below are amazed at this man walking across the wire, but the police arrest him when he gets off. A judge sentences him to perform for children, and Philippe continues to spend his time doing what he loves.

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