Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Empty Pot 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 honesty and perseverance, this The Empty Pot picture book by Demi 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 The Empty Pot Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Empty Pot. 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 The Empty Pot reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE EMPTY POT SUMMARY
The story The Empty Pot is about a boy named Ping. Ping loves flowers and everything that he plants blooms beautifully.
One day, the Emperor announces that the person who will succeed him to the throne will be the one who blooms the best flower out of seeds that the Emperor gives them. All of the children in the land go to the palace to get their seeds, and set off to plant them in hopes of becoming the next Emperor.
Ping plants his seed, and is surprised when nothing blooms. After a year’s time, still nothing has bloomed and he has to present his empty pot to the Emperor. Ping is ashamed when he sees that all the other boys and girls have beautiful flowers.
However, the Emperor announces that Ping will be the next Emperor! He says that the seeds he gave all the boys and girls were cooked and unable to grow flowers. Ping was the only one who was honest. Students will learn a lesson about honesty as they read this book.
THE EMPTY POT 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 The Empty Pot, 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 The Empty Pot reading comprehension questions focus on:
- summarize/retell
- analyzing character
- making connections
- identifying genre
- author’s purpose
- cause and effect
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- honesty
- perseverance
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- compound words
- contractions
- action verbs
THE EMPTY POT 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 The Empty Pot?
- Lexile® Measure: 630L
- Guided Reading Level: O-P
- DRA Level: 34-36
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.5-3.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Demi. It was illustrated by Demi.
What genre is The Empty Pot ?
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.
