Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Ish 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 growth mindset, this Ish picture book by Peter H. Reynolds 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 Ish Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Ish. 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 Ish reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
ISH SUMMARY
Ramon had always loved drawing. He would draw pictures of anything, anywhere. Then one day, his brother laughed at his picture of a vase. Ramon tried and tried to fix his drawing so it would look like the vase of flowers, but he couldn’t get his drawing to look just right. He notices his sister come into the room and take one of his crumpled up drawings.
Ramon chases Marisol up to her room to find that she has hung up all of his crumpled drawings. He tells her the drawing was supposed to be a vase but he couldn’t get it to look right. Marisol tells Ramon she thinks it looks “vase-ish.” This inspires Ramon to take a second look at all of his drawings. He starts to draw again and feel free as he creates imperfect drawings. Ramon learns that things do not have to be perfect and he can still enjoy activities like writing and drawing.
ISH 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 Ish, 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 Ish reading comprehension questions focus on:
- comparing and contrasting
- analyzing character
- making connections
- plot (problem and solution)
- cause and effect
- identifying theme, message or moral
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- growth mindset
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- nouns
- suffixes
- irregular
- verbs
- prepositions
ISH 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 Ish?
- Lexile® Measure: 440L
- Guided Reading Level: K-M
- DRA Level: 20
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.3-2.5
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Peter H. Reynolds. It was illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds.
What genre is Ish?
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.
