THE YEAR WE LEARNED TO FLY activities and lesson plan ideas

 This THE YEAR WE LEARNED TO FLY Activities and Interactive Read Aloud Resource Book Companion Packet includes lesson plans, reading comprehension questions, vocabulary, grammar, phonics, writing and word study activities with both printable and digital student pages.

Following an interactive read aloud of the picture book, THE YEAR WE LEARNED TO FLY by Jacqueline Woodson, choose from the included collection of either printable activities or go paperless and use the digital activities to practice standards-based skills. We've even included editable teaching slides themed to match the book!

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:

◼️READING STRATEGIES

☐ RETELLING

☐ MAKING INFERENCES

☐ VISUALIZING

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ SUFFIXES

☐ VERBS

☐ PRONOUNS

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ SELF-REGULATION

☐ RESILIENCY

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

On a rainy day, a brother and sister listen to their grandmother’s advice to use their imagination when feeling bored. Their grandmother teaches them to use their creativity to fly away. They fly to different places with beautiful flowers and soft winds. This strategy helps them when they fight, fuss, and when they are bored.

More importantly, we learn that their aunts, uncles, and cousins used this strategy as they were cuffed on ships to America. This skill of flying allows people to be brave and resilient, all with using their brilliant and beautiful minds. When the family moved and others were not accepting of them, they flew. And in time, they lifted others to fly with them as well.

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