These engaging book companion activities for Wemberly Worried will be a big hit in your kindergarten or first-grade classroom. These Wemberly Worried activities will help students practice a variety of skills within the curriculum.
Wemberly Worried is a picture book written by Kevin Henkes, author of Chrysanthemum and Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse.
The main character, a mouse named Wemberly, worries a lot about things and frets over even the smallest things. (Wemberly Worried and I might be related!) Her worries amplify when she is faced with starting school. Keven Henkes does it again with his ability to capture the essence of our personalities!
Me. Every. Day.
Here is a video of the story. I do suggest having a hard copy of the book to reference throughout the week of lessons, but a video is always a fun addition during the week. It’s an easy way to give students another interpretation of the read aloud.
This is a great book to use as part of our Engaging Readers series. (Books that beg to be read over and over again!) Through read aloud lessons and other engaging activities, students can build a strong foundation of reading comprehension skills.
You can space out these activities over the course of a week, as you read and re-read the story of Wemberly Worried together as a class.
When Wemberly arrives at school, her new teacher wants to introduce her to another student in the class named Jewel. While reading this book to your class, you can pause at this part of the story and have students make a prediction about what will happen next. Will they become fast friends? Will Jewel be a worrier, too? There are some great picture clues in the story illustrations that you can use to enhance this discussion.
Once students have had a chance to discuss their predictions, they can write and/or draw what they think will happen next!
They’re always so excited to see how their predictions match up to the story.
Another important strategy that you can practice with this book is identifying text details. The ability to recall and order details from the story will help students with retelling. This skill is important for reading comprehension, oral language development, and writing.
Wemberly Worried is a unique book, since many of the text details are just a list of things that Wemberly is worried about. This means that the details don’t need to be placed in a particular order in order to make sense. In this case, you can have students practice identifying text details by deciding which pictured details are “in the story” and which are “not in the story”.
You can do this activity together as a class with a pocket chart. Students can also cut and paste their own cards as a picture sort in their reading journals. Either way, this is great practice with identifying text details!
Another reading comprehension strategy that students can practice with a Wemberly Worried read aloud is making text-to-self connections.
Many of our young students know what it feels like to be worried about something! They have also experience the first day of school, just like Wemberly! This is a great opportunity for them to practice making those connections.
It’s important for young readers to see how characters can change throughout the story. This can greatly improve their reading comprehension skills!
You can lead your class through a discussion of Wemberly’s character development through the story. You can talk about the different emotions that Wemberly experiences during the story. You can also write down what you learned about Wemberly’s character at different points in the story. This visual is helpful for students as they track Wemberly’s character development.
You can also incorporate your weekly readaloud into other parts of the curriculum. For example, this Wemberly Worried craft is perfect for art time! Students can create their own version of Wemberly the mouse. They will improve their hand strength and coordination skills as they cut, assemble, and glue the pieces of the craft together.
Working on crafts can also help your students practice following directions. This communication skill can often be lacking in a kindergarten classroom, so the more you can practice listening and following directions the better!
These worry catchers are also a fun way to incorporate the weekly read aloud into your lesson plans. Students can use paper plates and yard to weave their own worry catchers.
Each of your students will put their pincer grasp to use as they thread the yarn through each hold on the paper plate. Students can also color the back side of their plates for some additional fine motor practice and to personalize their crafts.
The instructions for this activity are included in the Science, Math, and More Bundle for November. These activities are designed to connect your engaging read aloud for the week to other content areas.
The reading comprehension activities mentioned above (and more!) are included in my printable lesson plans for Wimberly Worried. I have used Hello Literacy Fonts throughout these lesson plans. The fonts are free for non-commercial use, so you may want to download her fonts and install them on your computer first. This will ensure that the formatting won’t be off. (Naturally, you can change the fonts if you prefer.) I’ve also written a blog post with additional tips for editing these visual lesson plans.
If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in these Wemberly Worried lesson plans, you can find this resource in my TPT store.
My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!
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2 Responses
Do you have plans for “The Night Before Thanksgiving” by Natasha Wing?
We don’t, but I love that book! Maybe in the future!!!