Alma and How She Got Her Name Activities and Lesson Plans for 2024

Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Alma and How She Got Her Name 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 a theme of positive self-talk, this Alma and How She Got Her Name picture book by Juana Martinez-Neale 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 Alma and How She Got Her Name Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:

1. Read a summary of Alma and How She Got Her Name. You can find it in the section below.
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 Alma and How She Got Her Name reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
   

ALMA AND HOW SHE GOT HER NAME SUMMARY

Alma and How She Got Her Name tells the story of a young girl named Alma. Alma has a very long name and is frustrated by how long it is. It doesn’t fit on a piece of paper, and she has to tape an extra strip of paper to the bottom so it can fit. She goes to her dad to complain how long it is, and instead he tells her the story of her name.

She learns that each part of her name represents one of her relatives. Each name was chosen specifically for her to represent the great qualities each relative had. Alma learns to love her name as she hears the story of each relative.

At the end of the story, Alma’s dad tells her that he chose the name Alma just for her and that it isn’t a name that someone else in the family had. The name is for her to use to write her own story.

Students will love hearing the story about how Alma got her name, and think about the origin of their own names.

ALMA AND HOW SHE GOT HER NAME 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 Alma and How She Got Her Name, 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 Alma and How She Got Her Name reading comprehension questions focus on:

• analyzing character
• summarize and retell
• making connections,
• ask and answer questions
• author’s purpose

LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS

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

• positive self-talk

GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY

• pronouns
• quotation marks
• compound words

ALMA AND HOW SHE GOT HER NAME 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