"Miss Nelson Is Missing" | Picture Book Study

About this resource

What's inside this resource

Miss Nelson Is Missing Picture Book Study: An Enriching Teaching Resource

The Miss Nelson Is Missing Picture Book Study is a resource featuring myriad learning activities related to the popular picture book. Ideal for educators, it enhances language arts curricula, catering to pre-school, kindergarten, and first-grade learners.

This no-prep tool consists of 48 pages of imaginative content, diving deeper into the story while integrating multiple disciplines. It caters to different learner levels from preschool to third grade - true versatility!

Differentiated resources allow customization according to learners' needs and class plans.
Includes more than reading exercises - a comprehensive exploration into language arts.
Fuses entertainment with learning via fun activities like jigsaw puzzles and story mazes.
Incorporates worksheets facilitating motor skill development through cutting and gluing practices.

Add-On Features:

Nurturing Early Writers: Worksheets that encourage young minds onto their literacy journeys creatively. Additionally includes story-related coloring pages stimulating creativity.
Critical Thinking Skills: Non-fiction articles foster analytical thinking in young readers.
Literacy Practices: Handwriting practice sheets featuring 'Teacher', puppet templates enabling role-play, letter writing templates fostering formal writing skills – holistic learning at its best!
Data Sorting Practice: Activity sheets test knowledge retention improving cognition capacities further. The study can be used for whole group studies or small group sessions; homework assignments also promote independent personal study practices.

The Miss Nelson Is Missing Picture Book Study transforms 'Miss Nelson is Missing' from just another book on your reading list into an immersive storytelling experience, allowing imagination and academics to bloom together, making education truly delightful!

What's included

Nine classroom discussion questions with a suggested answer written under each one (page 3)
A page of project, activity and craft ideas - acting the story out, a detective scavenger hunt, a class descriptive-word list - with a prop list (page 4)
A page of three YouTube links: a read-aloud, an animated version and a Lego version made by children (page 5)
A short non-fiction companion text, "Good Behavior In the Classroom", on how student behaviour helps a class run (page 6)
Comprehension and literacy pages: story matching, story sorting into in-the-story and not-in-the-story, missing-word cloze, finish-the-word letter gluing, story sequence writing and a FIRST/NEXT/THEN/LAST card set (pages 20, 24, 25, 28, 29, 41)
Phonics and handwriting pages: letter Tt formation and circling, a Tt maze, sight-word tracing and highlighting for THEY and WERE, and a CH digraph tracing and highlighting page (pages 30-34)
Literary-analysis pages: character traits for Miss Viola Swamp and for Miss Nelson, a story-elements organiser with a star rating, a Venn comparison with a similar story, and an opinion page (pages 36-40)
Crafts and cut-outs: a story jigsaw, finger puppets on sticks, a maze, a story crown, a labelled Miss Viola Swamp costume page, a hanging flap booklet, a thank-you note and a fold-and-glue envelope (pages 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 44)
Open drawing and writing prompts: "Where Did Miss Nelson Go?", "What Did Miss Nelson Use To Dress Up?", "How Would You Help A Class Behave Well?", plus design-your-own-cover and draw-a-picture pages (pages 26, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49)
A how-to-use page advising you to pick only the activities that suit your class, and a closing thank-you and credits page (pages 2, 51)

Resource types: Worksheets & Printables, Novel Studies

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Retell the story in order, distinguishing what happened first, next, then and last
Describe Miss Nelson and Miss Viola Swamp as characters and name the traits that separate them
Read the high-frequency words THEY and WERE by sight and find them inside sentences about the story
Identify the CH digraph in words such as chair, chase, itch and much, and highlight it inside a passage
Name the parts of a book - title, author, illustrator, picture - using the study's own title page as the example
Compare the book with another story, sorting what is the same and what is different into a Venn diagram

Teaching tips

The opening page is explicit that the set is a menu rather than a sequence: choose the activities that suit your class, and some teachers will use only the colouring page and the crafts
Difficulty spreads widely - line tracing and letter Tt formation sit in the same file as character traits and a Venn comparison - so pull the pages that match your group rather than printing straight through
The nine discussion questions come with suggested answers already written, so the read-aloud discussion can be led without preparing responses in advance
The clue question is the one worth saving for last: it asks children to put together the black dress, shoes, wig, false nose and black lipstick and work out who Miss Viola Swamp really was
The non-fiction behaviour text pairs with the story's theme and gives a natural fiction-to-non-fiction comparison for the same lesson
Several crafts need materials on hand before you start - popsicle sticks for the finger puppets, string for the hanging flap booklet, staples or tape for the crown, and glue for the sorting and letter pages

Skills covered

Story sequencing - children order the events with a FIRST/NEXT/THEN/LAST card set and then write their own first, next and last summary of the book.
Character description - separate pages ask for Miss Nelson's traits and Miss Viola Swamp's traits, and the activity page suggests building a class descriptive-word list for each.
Sight-word reading - children trace and write THEY and WERE, then highlight every occurrence inside six sentences retelling the story.
Digraph work - a page traces CH and asks children to highlight it inside a paragraph packed with chair, chase, chalk, cheerful and which.
Cutting, gluing and sorting - the sorting, patterning, jigsaw, puppet and envelope pages all run on cut-and-glue work rather than writing.
Book awareness - a labelling page asks children to place title, author, illustrator and picture on a cover, using Harry Allard and James Marshall as the named example.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

Is the set meant to be worked through in order?

No - the opening page treats it as a menu. It asks you to look through the options, decide which suit your students, and print only those; it explicitly allows for a teacher who uses just the colouring page and the crafts. The difficulty range backs that up, since line tracing and character-trait analysis both appear in the same file.

What does the non-fiction page add to the story work?

It is a short informational text called "Good Behavior In the Classroom", written for children about raising your hand, listening to instructions, helping classmates and thanking a teacher. It carries a fact box and gives the study a fiction-to-non-fiction pairing on the book's own theme.

Does anything in the set need materials beyond paper and pencils?

Several of the crafts do. The finger puppets are taped onto popsicle sticks, the hanging booklet folds over a piece of string, the story crown is stapled or taped to fit a head, and the sorting, patterning, jigsaw and envelope pages all need glue and scissors.