When it's the Last Day of School activities and lesson plan ideas

Our When It's the Last Day of School Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Maribeth Boelts' book. Read aloud the End of Year 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

☐ analyzing setting

☐ making connections

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ being respectful

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ multiple meaning words

☐ conjunctions

☐ synonyms

☐ ellipses

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

It’s the last day of school and James is so excited he runs all the way to school. As a student that typically misbehaves, James has big plans for the last day of school. He won’t talk during silent reading, he will complete all his work on time and thank the lunch ladies in the cafeteria. Throughout the day, James thinks about his exciting plans for summer, like riding bikes, camping, looking for crabs, and watching fireworks.

Throughout the school day James is a respectful and well-behaved student. When the last bell rings, James gives his teacher Mrs. Bremwood a big hug goodbye. As he leaves the school for summer, James explodes with excitement! This book makes a perfect read-aloud for the last day!

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