This month, there is a K-2 hop and a 3-5 hop. Feel free to choose one or BOTH to hop through and gather great lessons for our favorite spring mentor texts. At the bottom of all of The Reading Crew’s posts, there is a “map” of the blogs so you can hop through them all at once, visit some today and some later in the week, or see what best matches your literacy needs.
The book I am using for my lesson is Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco.
Although not a traditional Easter story, this book is a great one to read around that time of year. Patricia commonly recounts stories from her own childhood in her books, and this is no exception. Her childhood neighbors, Stewart and Winston, are much more like brothers to her, despite her Russian Jewish heritage and their being African American boys. The boys’ grandma, Miss Eula, is raising them, and Patricia looks to her as another grandmother as well. The three children decide they want to buy Miss Eula an Easter hat that she has had her eye on. Unfortunately, their good intentions are misunderstood, and the children learn a lesson about kindness and humanity, as well as how to make Pysanky eggs. The story is filled with family values, and it bridges racial and religious differences in a beautiful tale about building relationships.
I included a graphic organizer for theme that can be used with any book in your free download above! You could have students use the organizer with their own book, or with another read-aloud.
You might also like to show the students THIS VIDEO about how Pysanky eggs are made!
You can find more activities for this book, along with 29 others in my Volume 2 Better Than Basal (collection of mentor text activities)!
There is also a Volume 1 Better Than Basal with a collection of activities for 40 more of your favorite mentor texts!
Check out the other great mentor text lessons for upper grades!
Want to take a look at the K-2 lessons? Click through below!
