Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Just Help! 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 kindness, this Just Help! picture book by Sonia Sotomayor 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 Just Help! Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Just Help! 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 Just Help! reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
JUST HELP! SUMMARY
Sonia Sotomayor’s book, Just Help!, is a story about children making their community a better place. Readers will be encouraged to find the small, simple ways they can help others each day.
Each morning, Sonia’s mother asks her what she will do to help that day. Sonia looks up to her mother who is a nurse at the hospital. At school that day, Sonia and her friends were making care packages for soldiers fighting overseas. Everyone brought in items to add to the care packages. Later, she and her friends work together to clean up the park. Each small act of kindness inspired someone else to help in a different way. Brooklyn started a recycling program at school, Jasper donated toys to patients at the children’s hospital, and Maya gave a sweater away to her friend.
At the end of the day, Sonia’s mother asks her what she did to help that day. Sonia thinks back on all the things she and her friends did to help their community. But she also reflects on all of the people that helped her and their community. Sonia Sotomayor’s book is sure to get children inspired to help!
JUST HELP! LESSON PLAN IDEAS
Each of our 600+ 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 Just Help!, 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 Just Help! reading comprehension questions focus on:
- author’s purpose
- cause and effect
- identifying theme | message | moral
- making connections
- making predictions
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- kindness
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- plural nouns
- possessive nouns
- suffixes
- quotation marks
JUST HELP! 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 Just Help!?
- Lexile® Measure: N/A
- Guided Reading Level: M
- DRA Level: N/A
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 4.6
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Sonia Sotomayor. It was illustrated by Angela Dominguez.
What genre is Just Help!?
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.
