The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola: Lesson Plans, Activities & Read Aloud Ideas

By Deedee Wills
Updated on July 2
3 Comments

The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola Classroom Activity Ideas

The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola is one of my favorite back-to-school books to pull out at the start of the year. In this post I’ll walk you through how I use it as an anchor for author study, personal narrative writing, and a few easy centers, plus a directed drawing project your kids will love.

Tomie dePaola wrote this book about his own childhood dream of becoming an artist. That makes it the rare picture book that does double duty. In addition to an interactive read aloud, like to use this as a mentor text for personal narrative and a natural entry point into author study.

Kids connect to it fast. When students realize a real person wrote about his own life and that they can do the same thing, writing suddenly feels a lot more possible.

The Art Lesson Interactive Read Aloud Lesson Plan

Each week in our Engaging Readers units, we work on reading comprehension strategies during our close reading time. Research tells us that students in K-2 need repeated exposure to books that exceed their decoding abilities. This is needed because their listening comprehension is higher than their own reading abilities at this stage of their life. So during an interactive read-aloud, the teacher does the decoding, but the students do the thinking work.

While working with this book, students will practice the following reading comprehension strategies:

Visualization
Retelling (pictured below)
Making Connections (pictured below)
Inferring
Opinion Writing

The Art Lesson Vocabulary Activities, Sentence Study, and Directed Drawing Art Project

Here is the pocket chart activity we include in our Engaging Readers Lesson Plans. Each week we look closely at 2 vocabulary words.

And when we can combine our art/craft with our sentence study, we do it!

You will find this directed drawing and sentence study in the Engaging Readers too!

Using The Art Lesson as a Mentor Text for Personal Narrative Writing

The Art Lesson is a great mentor text for the beginning of the year. This is the time of year, when

Tomie dePaola Author Study Ideas for Kindergarten

I love gathering a few books from Tomie dePaola to use as an author study. Here are a few great books and how I like to use them.

Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola

This is a fantastic wordless book. This How-To book is one I grab every year during our writing lessons. When my young students, who don’t know their letters our sounds yet, see an entire book that is told through illustrations, they feel empowered to tell their stories through pictures too!

The Popcorn Book by Tomie dePaola

This is informational book has a story (about waiting for popcorn to cook) and really interesting facts about popcorn.

My students instantly connected with this book.

This is a great mentor text to return to during your informational writing lessons.

Tom by Tomie dePaola

On thing students learn about this author is how connected he was to his family. Tom is about his special relationship he had with his grandfather.

This book also works well with your writing lessons. My students bubbled with excitement as they connected with this book.

Oliver Button is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola

Oliver is a lot of things… a reader, an artist, a singer, and a dancer. Some of his classmates make fun of him, but that does not prevent him from following his heart.

This book celebrates individuality and students love talking about what makes them unique.

Beginning-of-the-Year Kindergarten ELA Assessments with ESGI

This last week I was able to get the bulk of my ELA assessments done. I do not need to tell you how challenging those beginning of the school year assessments can be. They take a ton of time. BUT… ESGI makes it so much easier!

I always tell people that ESGI is “Bake Sale” worthy. It is the one online tool that I would host a bake sale in order to afford. Honestly, is saves so much time, the reports are amazing, and you can truly progress monitor your students.

While working with this group of students, I was asked to make a few custom assessments. This was so easy with ESGI!

Introducing Kindergarten Literacy Centers at the Beginning of the Year

When introducing centers, we want to be doing it slowly. The beginning of the year is tough, so you’ll want to give yourself grace and introduce centers that students can do independently. Here are a few of my favorites.

Alphabet Centers for Kindergarten

These centers are really simple. Students feel successful as they learn the routines of center time.

In the photo above, students are putting the letters in alphabetical order.

In the photo below, students are matching the capital letter and the lowercase letter. Then coloring the pup to match. Simple!

This set of activities is from my:

Anytime Literacy Centers: Letters and Print Concepts

Editable Sight Word Centers for Kindergarten and First Grade

Since we introduce sight words at the beginning of the year, we like to practice them… a LOT!

The fact that these are editable makes them so simple to customize! You can find them by clicking:

Sight Words Centers EDITABLE! AUG/SEPT

BUMP Games: An Easy Back-to-School Math and Literacy Center

When learning to play a new game, we want to hook students! So we keep the academics on hold, while students become comfortable with the game structure. Once students learn the game, we will swap the colors for things like letters, words, numbers,… the possibilities are endless!

Free Apple BUMP Game Printable for Fall

I made this free version of BUMP that is perfect for fall! Simply add your name below, and you can have a copy sent to your email inbox!

Free Editable Lesson Plan Template for The Art Lesson

You can download this free editable template by clicking on the image below.

Do you need help in editing these visual lesson plans? Click: Tech Support for Teachers

Want to see other lesson plans like this?

To see additional Lesson Plan Posts like this, click HERE.

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Deedee Wills

After 25+ years teaching kindergarten, first, and second grade, I know how much the early years matter. I'm an Orton-Gillingham and LETRS-trained educator who develops curriculum, presents internationally and writes about literacy and early math. Let's make your job easier!

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