Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Drum Dream Girl 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 an equality theme, this Drum Dream Girl picture book by Margarita Engle 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 Drum Dream Girl Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Drum Dream Girl. 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 Drum Dream Girl reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
DRUM DREAM GIRL SUMMARY
The book Drum Dream Girl takes place on an island where music is a big part of daily life. On this island, it is believed that only boys should be allowed to play the drums. The main character in this story is a little girl, who loves the sound of drums and dreams of playing them someday. She spends her time listening to men play the drums and imagining herself playing them, too. One day, she plays the drums for her sisters and they are very impressed. However, her father hears and was very upset to see his daughter playing the drums. Sadly, the girl must keep dreaming about the drums.
Her father eventually decides to take her to a music teacher who can decide if she should be able to play. The music teacher is so impressed with the girl and helps her become an even better drummer. When she is good enough, the drum dream girl plays her drums at a cafe. Everyone begins singing and dancing while she plays. This helps the people on the island believe that girls should be able to play the drums and dream just like the boys do.
DRUM DREAM GIRL 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 Drum Dream Girl, 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 Drum Dream Girl reading comprehension questions focus on:
- rhyme, rhythm and repetition
- identifying theme, message and moral
- figurative language
- analyzing illustrations
- analyzing setting
- summarize and retell
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- equality
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- action verbs
- plural nouns
- compound words
DRUM DREAM GIRL 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 DRUM DREAM GIRL?
- Lexile® Measure: NP
- Guided Reading Level: L
- DRA Level: 20
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 4.2
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Margarita Engle. It was illustrated by Rafael López.
What genre is Drum Dream Girl?
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 48 pages long.
