The Gardener Interactive Read-Aloud Activities

This picture book companion is a complete supplemental resource for the read-aloud book The Gardener by Sarah Stewart.

With 32 print-and-go reading activities to choose from, this resource is ideal for customizing learning to your student's specific needs and academic abilities. Students will investigate characters, identify story elements, determine the theme, sequence story events, compare & contrast, identify problems & solutions, make predictions, inferences, & connections, answer questions that require them to think beyond the text, and much more!

Students will love the engaging and fun activities, and you will appreciate the time saved hunting for high-level resources to teach reading concepts that students frequently struggle with. The activities provided are designed to enable students to apply higher-level thinking skills, encourage them to provide text evidence to support their thinking, and challenge them to express their own thoughts and/or perspectives.

⭐️This Resource Includes:⭐️

• Making Predictions: Before reading the book, students will make predictions about the text.

• Story Elements: Students fill in the boxes with words & pictures to represent the story elements.

• Sequencing: Students will retell & illustrate the important parts of the story.

• Summary: Students complete the Somebody, Wanted, Because, But, So graphic organizer and write a summary of the story.

• Recalling events in Chronological Order: Students describe and illustrate four major events in the story in chronological order.

• Story Event Sort: Students will describe a scene or event from the story that fits into each of the categories & explain how the event made them feel & how it relates to the category.

• Making Connections: Students make connections to an event from the story.

• Using Details to Make Inferences: Students will make inferences based on the text taken from the story.

• Making Inferences: Students use clues & schema to make inferences while reading the story.

• Character Traits: Students choose the most important character traits that describe each of the characters and give 1-2 examples from the story that support the traits they chose.

• Character Inside & Out (Lydia): Students include details from the story to describe what the character says, thinks, does, and feels.

• Character Inside & Out (Uncle Jim): Students include details from the story to describe what the character says, thinks, does, and feels.

• Character Feelings (Lydia): Students describe how the character's feelings change throughout the story & give examples of the events that cause them to feel the way they do.

• Character Feelings (Uncle Jim): Students describe how the character's feelings change throughout the story & give examples of the events that cause them to feel the way they do.

• Character Development (Uncle Jim): Students select character traits that best describe Uncle Jim at different times throughout the story and give examples from the book to support the traits they chose.

• Character Change (Lydia): Students will explain how the character changed from the beginning to the end of the story and describe the events that caused the change to happen.

• Sketch a Scene From the Story: Students will draw a scene from the story & explain why it's important.

• Setting Influences the Plot: Students will draw a scene from the story that takes place in one of the settings and write about what happened there and why it was important to the plot.

• Setting the Scene: Students identify three different settings in the story and explain how they know the setting changed.

• Details Detective: Students will describe three clues that they noticed that hint at Lydia’s special place.

• Author's Message: Students describe four important events from the story and put them in chronological order. Then, answer the questions about the author's message.

• Theme: Students answer the questions to determine which theme best fits the story and provide text evidence to support their choice.

• 3-2-1: Students will list the three important things that Lydia was too shy to say to Uncle Jim’s face, identify two items that Lydia’s family sent her by mail, and come up with one word that describes Lydia and why.

• Thinking About the Text: Students will answer the questions about the story & include examples from the text to support their answers.

• Thinking Beyond the Text: Students will answer the questions about the story & include examples from the text to support their answers.

• Before & After: Students will describe and illustrate the dirty rooftop before Lydia changed it and what it was like after.

• Making a Difference: Students will write a paragraph explaining what Lydia did to make a difference in Uncle Jim's life and draw an illustration to go with their writing.

• Wait... There's More!: Students will write about what happens next in the story.

• Word Search Puzzle: Students find the words hidden in the puzzle (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

• Book Review: Students will rate and review the book.

• Compare & Contrast: Students will compare the books, The Gardener and Wanda’s Roses.

• Community Project Flyer: Students will create a flyer for a community service project that will persuade others to help or improve something in their community

This resource is for extension read-aloud activities only. The book is not included.