Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for America’s White Table will find this post helpful. It includes resource recommendations, free teaching ideas, and information about the book. You’ll have everything you need to deliver engaging interactive read aloud lessons based on this story.
With a theme of being respectful, this America’s White Table picture book by Margot Theis Raven is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too! Learn more about this book below!
Engage Your Students with America’s White Table Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of America’s White Table. You can find it in the section below.
- Check out the teaching ideas for reading comprehension strategies, grammar topics and social emotional learning skills that can be taught using this children’s book.
- Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with America’s White Table reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
AMERICA'S WHITE TABLE SUMMARY
In this book, a young girl named Katie learns about the importance of honoring and remembering veterans on Veterans Day. Katie’s mother teaches her and her sisters about the white table many Americans set for this day and what each item on the table symbolizes. They set a small table with an empty chair. There is a lemon slice and salt on the plate plus a turned over glass and a rose on the table.
Katie learns that her Uncle John is a veteran who was held prisoner when he served in the war. He will be joining them for dinner that night and the girls realize just how much this symbol means to him. Each girl makes a special gift to place on the table. Katie makes a book where she expresses her hopes that all Americans set a table like this to remember veterans. When Uncle John sees the table the girls have set, it brings tears of pride to his eyes.
AMERICA’S WHITE TABLE LESSON PLAN IDEAS
Each of our 400+ Starts With a Story book companions come with a teacher’s guide to make lesson planning quick and easy, printable worksheets and digital resources that cover ALL of the standards-based reading comprehension skills.
When it comes to writing lesson plans and finding activities for America’s White Table, we’ve already done all of the heavy lifting for you.
We found this book was especially good at teaching the topics listed below.
READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
The text-based America’s White Table reading comprehension questions focus on:
- point of view
- summarize / retell
- identify the main idea
- author’s purpose
- cause and effect
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- being respectful
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- possessive nouns
- plural nouns
- adverbs
- articles
AMERICA’S WHITE TABLE ACTIVITIES
You’ll receive all of the following resources aligned to the story:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
YOU HAVE 2 OPTIONS! WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK COMPANION?
BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
What are the reading levels for America’s White Table?
- Lexile® Measure: 775 – 800
- Guided Reading Level: S
- DRA Level: 42 – 44
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 4.8
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Margot Theis Raven. It was illustrated by Mike Benny.
What genre is America’s White Table?
It is a fiction book. You may want to check out our genre activities or read our blog post, How to Teach Genre to Elementary Students.
How many pages are in the book?
The story is 32 pages long.
