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Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources for The Hundred Dresses

The cover for The Hundred Dresses Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources

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Use The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes to turn your read aloud or small group work into a time to improve comprehension and talk about the text in purposeful ways.

Peggy, Maddie, and Wanda are classmates who come from different worlds. Peggy is privileged, Maddie wears Peggy's redesigned" dresses, and Wanda lives with her father and brother on the wrong side of town. This Newberry Honor book uses the interactions of these three characters to spin a classic tale about the importance of treating others with kindness. While the focus of The Hundred Dresses Book Club is analyzing characters, students will also be exposed to a valuable lesson about how to treat their peers."

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Explore lesson plans and activities to help you teach with The Hundred Dresses in the drop down below.

Instructional Overview

The instructional overview includes instructional background for characterization, a list of instructional objectives for each of the Book Club meetings, and a list of the materials and preparation necessary to The Hundred Dresses Book Club.

Common Core State Standards Alignment

RL.3.5RL.3.4RL.3.3RL.3.2RL.3.1RL.3.6SL.3.3L.3.6L.3.5bL.3.4aW.3.8SL.3.2SL.3.1dSL.3.1cRF.3.4RF.3.3RL.3.10RL.3.9RL.3.7

TEKS Alignment

3.7C3.9A3.8D3.8C3.8B3.8A3.7G3.7F3.7E3.7D3.9B3.7B3.7A3.6I3.6H3.6G3.6F3.6E3.6D3.6C3.10B3.13H3.13E3.13C3.13A3.10G3.10F3.10E3.10D3.10C3.6B3.10A3.9F3.9E(iii)3.9E(ii)3.9E(i)3.9D(iii)3.9D(ii)3.9D(i)3.9C3.6A3.1E3.1D3.1C3.1A

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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

Author Eleanor Estes created three main characters to tell the story of The Hundred Dresses. Teaching your readers how to examine each of the characters' traits, emotions, and motivations, will help them understand the story more fully through personal connection to the characters.

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Meeting 2

Identifying character traits (how a character looks or behaves) is an ideal way to start learning about characterization. This The Hundred Dresses Book Club focuses on teaching students how to use the text to create an image of each character. Students will use a graphic organizer to help them track their thinking about the main characters.

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Meeting 3

Another way to explore characterization in The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes is to look at character emotions. Often times, characters have strong feelings in response to a major story event. Identifying these emotional reactions helps your students as readers by allowing them to connect to the character.

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Meeting 4

The final building block to exploring characterization using Eleanor Estes' The Hundred Dresses is examining character motivations. A character's traits, emotions, and story events can all be motivating factors, or influences, for a character. Readers will need to consider all of these pieces as they practice identifying motivations for each character.

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Meeting 5

During this final The Hundred Dresses Book Club meeting, students will use their work on characterization to identify ways that the main characters may have changed over the course of the story. Students will showcase their learning with an interactive culminating activity.

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Vocabulary Connections with The Hundred Dresses

This set of vocabulary development resources for The Hundred Dresses 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.3.4a,L.3.5b,L.3.6

TEKS Alignment

3.7E,3.7F,3.3A,3.3B

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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 characterization.

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Comprehension Assessment with The Hundred Dresses

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

Common Core State Standards Alignment

TEKS Alignment

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Running Record with The Hundred Dresses

Use this Running Record to assess oral reading fluency with The Hundred Dresses. 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 The Hundred Dresses

Title: The Hundred Dresses

Author: Eleanor Estes

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Themes: Social Awareness, Self Management, Self Awareness, Bullying, Decision Making, Award Winners

ISBN: 9780152051709

Publisher's Summary:

Wanda Petronski is a quiet, imaginative girl who stands apart from her classmates at a small Connecticut school in the 1940s. Every day, she wears the same faded blue dress, which sets her apart and makes her the target of teasing and exclusion, especially from the popular girls, Peggy and Maddie. When Wanda claims she has a hundred beautiful dresses at home, her classmates find this hard to believe and continue to taunt her. The story's gentle narrative explores how Maddie, torn between loyalty to her friend Peggy and her awareness that the teasing is wrong, struggles with her conscience and her role as a bystander.

The Hundred Dresses deftly addresses themes of bullying, prejudice, and the courage it takes to stand up for others. As the story unfolds, Wanda's kindness, resilience, and creativity are revealed, particularly through a school drawing contest that changes the girls' perspectives. The book's accessible language and emotional depth make it an excellent choice for classroom discussions about empathy, diversity, and the impact of our actions on others. Teachers will find this Newbery Honor classic a valuable tool for fostering conversations about kindness, the importance of speaking up, and reflecting on the harm caused by exclusion. The Hundred Dresses remains a powerful starting point for lessons about understanding, forgiveness, and the everyday choices that shape our character.

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Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources for The Hundred Dresses