The Most Magnificent Thing activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Most Magnificent Thing Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Ashely Spires' 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

☐ visualizing

☐ comparing and contrasting

☐ analyzing character

☐ analyzing illustrations

☐ cause and effect

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ anger management

☐ feelings

☐ best-effort

☐ growth mindset

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ base words

☐ time order words

☐ adjectives

☐ action verbs

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires tells the story of a young girl and her dog who like to do everything together. One day, they decide to build the most magnificent thing. They get started building, and when they finish they discover it is not magnificent.

The girl and dog start making many changes to their creation, trying to make it exactly what she imagined. As they work, some people start admiring her work. The girl is frustrated that they can’t see the magnificent thing she imagined. Her frustration grows and she becomes very angry, smashing her creation.

While on a walk to cool down, the girl discovers the different parts of her creation and realizes there are parts of each she likes. She gets back to work and eventually creates exactly what she imagined.

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