The Widow’s Broom Activities: Halloween Mentor Text Unit for Grades 3-5

Description

The Widow’s Broom activities in this unit pair Chris Van Allsburg’s eerie story with a mentor sentence lesson on prepositional phrases, plus activities for inferences and theme, for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. A witch’s broom is left behind with a widow, and her neighbors’ fear of it makes the book a strong way to talk about how we treat people who are different, around Halloween or any time of year.

This unit gives you a mentor sentence lesson, reading and writing activities, and vocabulary practice for one read-aloud, in print and in Google Slides. The book is not included, so check your library or look for an online read-aloud.

How the Widow’s Broom activities work:

Read the book aloud, then use the activities across your reading and writing time:

• Grammar: students study a mentor sentence from the book, and an interactive notebook activity reviews prepositional phrases.
• Reading: seven reading ideas, with ready-to-use activities for making inferences, theme, and comparing characters’ reactions.
• Writing: a writing idea with a prompt.
• Vocabulary: contextual practice with words from the story.

What’s included:

• A mentor sentence lesson for The Widow’s Broom
• An interactive notebook activity for prepositional phrases
• Seven reading ideas, plus activities for making inferences, theme, and comparing characters’ reactions
• A writing idea with a prompt
• Contextual vocabulary activities
• Links to Google Slides versions for digital learning

Why use a mentor text?

One good picture book can carry a grammar lesson, reading skills, and a writing prompt at the same time. Students hear the story once and return to it for each skill, so your read-aloud time does more than one job.

Where this unit comes from:

This unit is a bonus unit added to my Volume 2 Yearlong Curriculum for grades 3-5. If you own Volume 2, you already have this unit.

This purchase is for one teacher. Please don’t share the files with other teachers. Thank you!

Copyright © 2022 Ideas By Jivey, LLC
All rights reserved by author, Jessica Ivey.
Permission to copy for single classroom use only.
Electronic distribution limited to single classroom use only.
Not for public display.