The Wall activities and lesson plan ideas

 The Wall Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Eve Bunting'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

☐ summarize / retell

☐ visualizing

☐ analyzing character

☐ point of view

☐ ask and answer questions

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ being respectful

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ possessive nouns

☐ plural nouns

☐ irregular verbs

☐ contractions

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

 A young boy and his father have taken a long trip to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. They are looking for the name of the boy’s grandfather. While they walk along the wall, the young boy notices all of the things that have been left at the wall to honor the names: Flags, stuffed bears, letters and roses. He also notices all the different people visiting the wall, including a veteran in a wheelchair.

When the boy and his father finally find the name of his grandfather, they both take turns rubbing the name on the wall. The boy’s father even uses paper and a pencil to rub the name onto the paper. They leave the boy’s school picture in front of the wall. The boy learns that while it might be sad at the wall, it is a place of honor. He and his father are proud that his grandfather’s name is on such an important wall.

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