Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Be Kind 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 themes of patience, this Be Kind picture book by Pat Zietlow Miller 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 Be Kind Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Be Kind. 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 Be Kind reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
BE KIND SUMMARY
One day at snack the main character’s classmate, Tanisha, spilled grape juice all over herself. Everyone laughed except the main character. She was about to but remembered her mother always tells her to be kind. She tries to think of something she can do to make Tamika feel better. Should she pour grape juice all over herself? The main character starts to think about what being kind really is.
She lists all different examples of kindness, things that are easy to do. You can call someone by their name, ask someone to play, and pay attention to others. In the end, the main character decides to sit near Tanisha during art and paint a picture for her. She realizes that the small acts of kindness she can do might encourage others to do them too, and they will spread all around the world.
BE KIND 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 Be Kind, 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 Be Kind reading comprehension questions focus on:
- summarizing and retelling
- analyzing character
- making connections
- author’s purpose
- identifying theme
- message or moral
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- patience
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- irregular verbs
- punctuation
- capitalization
- base words
BE KIND 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 Be Kind?
- Lexile® Measure: AD480L
- Guided Reading Level: M-N
- DRA Level: 20-24
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.6-2.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Pat Zietlow Miller. It was illustrated by Jen Hill.
What genre is Be Kind?
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.
