The Relatives Came activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Relatives Came Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Cynthia Rylant'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

☐ visualizing

☐ making connections

☐ ask and answer questions

☐ sequencing

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ transitions

☐ family

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ pronouns

☐ possessive nouns

☐ suffixes

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The relatives in The Relatives Came travel a long way from Virginia to visit with their family. When they get there, everyone is very excited to see each other. There is lots of hugging, laughing, and smiling.

The relatives stay for many weeks and their family welcomes them into their home. The relatives do many things during their visit such as tend the garden, fix items, and play music. The relatives and their family are sad when it is time for them to go, but know that they will be back again next summer.

Students will enjoy this story about what happens when relatives visit and will make connections to their own lives and their families.

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