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Truman Activities and Lesson Plans for 2025

Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Truman will love this post. It includes resource recommendations, information about the book, teaching ideas, and more.

With a theme of feelings, this Truman picture book by Jean Reidy is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too!

Engage Your Students with Truman Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:

  1. Read a summary of Truman.
  2. 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.
  3. Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with Truman reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.

TRUMAN SUMMARY

Truman the turtle lived with his Sarah high above all the honking, beeping, and shrieking in the city below. He loved living with Sarah because she was pensive and peaceful just like he was. 

 

One morning, Sarah ate a big banana, put on a new sweater, clipped a bow into her hair, and carried a new backpack. Before she left, Sarah gave Truman some extra green beans and told him to be brave. Truman waited and waited for Sarah to come home but when Truman realized she had been gone longer than ever before, he decided to go out and look for her. Truman had never left his tank before. He used the three big rocks in his tank to climb out. Leaving the tank was unsettling for Truman. The house looked so big to him and although he could hear all the noises from the street, he couldn’t see them anymore. 

 

As Truman made his way across the giant rug, he heard some noises out in the hall. Suddenly, Sarah opened the door and came running inside. She was surprised to see Truman and picked him up right away. Truman was proud of his act of bravery and Sarah returned him to his tank. One day, Sarah even took him to school one day for show and tell!

TRUMAN 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 Truman, 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 Truman reading comprehension questions focus on:

  • making inferences
  • making predictions
  • analyzing character
  • making connections
  • plot | problem – solution
  • sequencing

LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS

We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:

  • feelings

GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY

  • compound words 
  • base words
  • onomatopoeia 
  • interjections

TRUMAN 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
Truman book companion
teacher and her students talking about a picture book

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Truman book cover and sequencing worksheet

BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS

What are the reading levels for Truman?

  • Lexile® Measure: 560L
  • Guided Reading Level: N
  • DRA Level: 28
  • Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3

Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?

The book was written and illustrated by Jean Reidy.

What genre is Truman?

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 48 pages long.

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