Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Jessica 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 coping and friendship, this Jessica picture book by Kevin Henkes 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 Jessica Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Jessica. 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 Jessica reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
JESSICA SUMMARY
The story, Jessica, by Kevin Henkes, is about a girl named Ruthie. Ruthie doesn’t have a brother or sister or pets, but she does have her imaginary friend Jessica. Jessica and Ruthie do everything together. They go to the moon, to the playground, to grandma’s and eat, read, and build together.
When it is time for Ruthie to start kindergarten, her parents say that Jessica should stay home. However, Jessica goes to school with Ruthie, but Jessica wants to go home once she gets there. Ruthie is spending so much time keeping her busy that she is missing everything happening with the real kids at school.
At the end of the story, a real girl named Jessica asks Ruthie if she wants to be her partner. The two girls become great friends and Ruthie doesn’t miss her imaginary friend Jessica.
JESSICA 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 Jessica, 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 Jessica reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making connections
- making inferences
- making predictions
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- coping
- friendship
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- common and proper nouns
- action verbs
- compund words
JESSICA 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 Jessica?
- Lexile® Measure: AD490L
- Guided Reading Level: N
- DRA Level: 24
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Kevin Henkes. It was illustrated by Kevin Henkes.
What genre is Jessica?
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 24 pages long.
