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Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources for Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

The cover for Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources

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Use Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo to turn your read aloud or small group work into a time to improve comprehension and talk about the text in purposeful ways.

Students will quickly fall for Ulysses the super squirrel in this expertly crafted book. By tempering some sensitive themes of self-doubt and broken homes with laugh out loud unanticipated occurrences, Kate DiCamillo has created a unique chapter book that makes it easy for readers to explore cause and effect. Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures blends traditional storytelling with graphic novel illustrations, making this book the ideal choice for mini-lessons focused on tracking cause and effect across longer texts.

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Explore lesson plans and activities to help you teach with Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures in the drop down below.

Instructional Overview

The instructional overview includes instructional background for cause and effect, instructional objectives for each of the Book Club meetings and a list of the materials and preparation necessary to the Flora and Ulysses Book Club.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

RL.5.5RL.5.4RL.5.3RL.5.2RL.5.1RL.5.6W.5.8L.5.6L.5.5L.5.4aW.5.9SL.5.1cSL.5.1bSL.5.1aRF.5.4RF.5.3RL.5.10RL.5.9RL.5.7

TEKS Alignment

5.7C5.9A5.8D5.8C5.8B5.8A5.7G5.7F5.7E5.7D5.9B5.7B5.7A5.6I5.6H5.6G5.6F5.6E5.6D5.10B5.13H5.13E5.13C5.13A5.10G5.10F5.10E5.10D5.10C5.6C5.10A5.9F5.9E(iii)5.9E(ii)5.9E(i)5.9D(iii)5.9D(ii)5.9D(i)5.6B5.6A5.1D5.1A5.1C

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Management Resources

The management resources include a Book Club Calendar, conversation prompts, Student Self-Evaluation forms, Reading Response Board (with optional Common Core alignment), and an Expectations for Book Club anchor chart.

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Meeting 1

Recognizing and analyzing cause and effect relationships is a key skill in becoming a competent reader. Using Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo, students will gain experience with causation in literature.

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Meeting 2

During this Flora and Ulysses Book Club meeting, students will be introduced to using a Cause and Effect Flow Chart to help them identify and visualize causation as they read.

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Meeting 3

Noticing cause and effect relationships in Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo will help students better understand the text. Book Club discussion focuses on the fact that one cause can have multiple effects.

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Meeting 4

When exploring causation in Kate DiCamillo's Flora and Ulysses, it is important for readers to notice that a single effect can have multiple causes. Since the causes can be revealed as the story progresses, a graphic organizer is useful for tracking and is introduced here.

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Meeting 5

When looking for causation, good readers look for clues and ask questions. Discussion for this Flora and Ulysses Book Club meeting centers on important questions for readers to ask themselves as they read.

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Meeting 6

Building on the causation questions that were introduced in the last Flora and Ulysses Book Club meeting, students will discuss important questions to ask to identify effects while reading.

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Meeting 7

Finding causation in Kate DiCamillo's Flora and Ulysses can be tricky. Readers will learn that sometimes in the story, the cause comes before the effect, and other times the effect will come before the cause. Looking for signal words in the text will help students identify cause and effect relationships.

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Meeting 8

Author Kate DiCamillo uses examples of causation throughout Flora and Ulysses. Building on the signal words that were the topic of the last meeting, students will now sort signal words into two groups; one set for cause and one for effect.

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Meeting 9

As students look at cause and effect one last time with Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo, they will create a large graphic organizer that outlines the causes and effects of one squirrel being vacuumed up.

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The first page of Asking Questions with A Bad Case of Stripes

Vocabulary Connections with Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

This set of vocabulary development resources for Flora and Ulysses highlights the words that are most important for students to know and understand while reading the book. Through engaging in fun word games, matching words to definitions, and practicing how to categorize words, students will develop the vocabulary necessary to comprehend this story and many others.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

L.5.4a,L.5.5,L.5.6

TEKS Alignment

5.7E,5.7F,5.3A,5.3B

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Focus Assessment and Rubric

Use this six-question assessment to determine whether or not students understand the key concepts associated with cause and effect.

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Comprehension Assessment with Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

This 9 question Common Core aligned assessment can be used to determine students' overall comprehension of Flora and Ulysses and their mastery of the Common Core State Standards.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

TEKS Alignment

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Running Record with Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

Use this Running Record to assess oral reading fluency with Flora and Ulysses. Track meaning, structure, and visual accuracy using the first 100 words of the text to determine whether or not this book is a good fit for the readers in your classroom.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

TEKS Alignment

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Management Resources - Spanish

The management resources include a Book Club Calendar, conversation prompts, Student Self-Evaluation forms, Reading Response Board (with optional Common Core alignment), and an Expectations for Book Club anchor chart.

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About the Book

The cover for the book Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

Title: Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

Author: Kate DiCamillo

Genre: Fantasy

Themes: Laugh Out Loud, Friendship, Relationship Skills, Award Winners

ISBN: 9780763667245

Publisher's Summary:

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo is a spirited and imaginative novel that brings together the unlikely duo of Flora Belle Buckman, a self-proclaimed cynic and comic book enthusiast, and Ulysses, a squirrel who gains extraordinary powers after a near-fatal encounter with a vacuum cleaner. Set in a suburban neighborhood, the story chronicles Flora's quest to protect her new squirrel friend while navigating the complexities of her parents' divorce and her own feelings of loneliness. With its unique blend of prose and comic-book style illustrations by K.G. Campbell, the book offers a humorous and heartfelt exploration of family, friendship, and the power of believing in the impossible. Flora's relationship with her mother, a romance novelist who disapproves of comics, and her gentle, reserved father adds emotional depth and real-world challenges to the fantastical adventure. The narrative's quirky characters and whimsical tone make it an excellent choice for classroom read-alouds or independent reading, inviting discussions about empathy, resilience, and the importance of open-hearted connections. Flora and Ulysses is celebrated for its warmth, wit, and the way it encourages readers to see the extraordinary in the everyday.

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Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources for Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures