Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Watercress 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 individuality and empathy, this Watercress picture book by Andrea Wang 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 Watercress Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Watercress. 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 Watercress reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
WATERCRESS SUMMARY
A young girl and her family are traveling down a road in their old Pontiac. Suddenly, her parents get very excited- they see watercress growing off of the road! They all get out of the car to help gather this harvest of vegetables. As the family is deep in the muck, the child feels embarrassed and hopes no one she knows sees her.
Later that night, as they are sitting down for dinner, the young girl refuses to eat the watercress. She feels frustrated this food did not come from the grocery store. Her mother quickly goes to get a photo, where we learn that members of her family passed during the famine in her country.
The young girl learns the importance of family, food, and her Chinese heritage.
WATERCRESS 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 Watercress, 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 Watercress reading comprehension questions focus on:
- retelling
- analyzing character
- authors purpose
- figurative language
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- individuality
- empathy
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- adjectives
- pronouns
- comma
WATERCRESS 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 Watercress?
- Lexile® Measure: AD610L
- Guided Reading Level: O
- DRA Level: 30-34
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.3-3.5
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Andrea Wang. It was illustrated by Jason Chin.
What genre is Watercress?
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.
