Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Other Side 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 courage and friendship, this The Other Side picture book by Jacqueline Woodson 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 Other Side Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Other Side. 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 Other Side reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE OTHER SIDE SUMMARY
This summer, the fence that separated the two sides felt longer to Clover. Clover’s mom told her she cannot cross the fence because it separates where the white people and black people lived. But each day, she saw a white girl playing and sitting on the fence. When she would pass this girl in town, the girl seemed sad. On rainy days, she would still see the girl playing in the puddles outside.
One day, Clover and the girl, Annie, strike up a conversation. They both sit on the fence, watching others and the land around them. They play jump rope with friends on one side of the fence, and hope for days of when the fence will be taken down.
THE OTHER SIDE 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 Other Side, 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 Other Side reading comprehension questions focus on:
- retelling
- analyzing characters
author’s purpose
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- courage
- friendship
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- past tense verbs
- contractions
- pronouns
THE OTHER SIDE 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 Other Side?
- Lexile® Measure: AD490L
- Guided Reading Level: L
- DRA Level: 20-24
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.6-2.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Jacqueline Woodson. It was illustrated by E.B. Lewis.
What genre is The Other Side?
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.
