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Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources for The Lotus Seed

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Use The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland to strengthen your students' comprehension skills, build their vocabulary, and help them understand how words work.

Told from a granddaughter's perspective, The Lotus Seed is a poignant story about a girl who immigrates to America during World War II and carries a lotus seed with her as a memory of her home in Vietnam. You can use The Lotus Flower to teach students of different reading levels how making connections, retelling, and visualizing can help enhance comprehension of an unfamiliar topic or setting.
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Explore lesson plans and activities to help you teach with The Lotus Seed in the drop down below.

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Determining Importance with The Lotus Seed

The Lotus Seed is an ideal anchor text for a mini-lesson focused on determining importance. This lesson plan and set of resources guides readers to notice key details in the story in order to better understand important events, character motivation, and overall theme.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
RL.3.2,RL.3.3,RL.3.5,RL.3.6,RL.3.7,RL.3.10,RF.3.3,RF.3.4,SL.3.1d,SL.3.2,SL.3.3,W.3.8,L.3.6
TEKS Alignment
3.7B,3.13H,3.13E,3.13C,3.10A,3.8C,3.7G,3.7F,3.7E,3.7D,3.7C,3.1A,3.7A,3.6I,3.6G,3.6E,3.6B,3.6A,3.1E,3.1D,3.1C
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Making Connections with The Lotus Seed

The Lotus Seed will support more sophisticated readers who are practicing making connections to deepen their understanding of a story. Readers will need to focus on making text-to-text and text-to-world connections in order to fully understand the setting, the chain of events and the characters' feelings in this book.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
RL.3.1,RL.3.3,RL.3.10,RF.3.3,RF.3.4,SL.3.1d,SL.3.2,SL.3.3,W.3.8,L.3.6
TEKS Alignment
3.7C,3.13H,3.13E,3.13C,3.8C,3.7G,3.7F,3.7E,3.7D,3.1A,3.7B,3.7A,3.6I,3.6E,3.6A,3.1E,3.1D,3.1C
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Retelling & Summarizing with The Lotus Seed

With The Lotus Seed, you can differentiate your lesson for readers who need additional support retelling and those who need an extra challenge. Early readers will be able to identify a clear cast of characters and events in their summary, and more advanced readers will have the added challenge of recognizing multiple narrator perspectives.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
RL.3.1,RL.3.2,RL.3.4,RL.3.7,RL.3.10,RF.3.3,RF.3.4,SL.3.1d,SL.3.2,SL.3.3,W.3.8,L.3.6
TEKS Alignment
3.7D,3.13H,3.13E,3.13C,3.8D,3.8C,3.8B,3.7G,3.7F,3.7E,3.1A,3.7C,3.7B,3.6I,3.6G,3.6A,3.1E,3.1D,3.1C
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Visualizing with The Lotus Seed

Using detailed language and artistic illustrations, The Lotus Seed is the perfect text for a lesson on visualizing unfamiliar settings and human emotions.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
RL.3.7,RL.3.10,RF.3.3,RF.3.4,SL.3.1d,SL.3.2,SL.3.3,W.3.8,L.3.6
TEKS Alignment
3.7A,3.13H,3.13E,3.13C,3.10C,3.7F,3.7E,3.7C,3.7B,3.1A,3.6I,3.6E,3.6D,3.6A,3.1E,3.1D,3.1C
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Comprehension Assessment with The Lotus Seed

Use this Common Core aligned comprehension assessment to evaluate students' comprehension of The Lotus Seed.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment
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Suffixes with The Lotus Seed

This word work lesson plan and set of teaching resources use The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland as a springboard for instruction focused on suffixes.

By anchoring word study to the text, students will benefit from seeing how words ending in -ed are used inside of the text before engaging in both guided and independent practice with suffixes.

Common Core State Standards Alignment
RF.3.3,RF.3.4
TEKS Alignment
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Vocabulary Connections with The Lotus Seed

This set of vocabulary development resources for The Lotus Seed 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 pictures, 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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The Amazing Lotus: A Flower Full of Meaning

This Knowledge and Fluency Passage offers a carefully crafted passage about the lotus flower’s significance in Vietnamese culture, helping students connect with the deeper meaning behind the seed in The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland. By practicing fluency with this text, students gain insight into themes of hope, strength, and family heritage, enriching their understanding of the story’s emotional core. Use this passage before reading the book to build background knowledge and prepare students to better comprehend the text.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
|replace-resource-ccss|
TEKS Alignment
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Cause and Effect Matching with The Lotus Seed

Read The Lotus Seed then have some fun matching cause and effect sentences from the book. By using these cause and effect cards, students will demonstrate both their comprehension of the text and their understanding of cause and effect relationships in hands-on and interactive way.

This resource includes matching/sorting cards and a sorting mat for four cause and effect sentences in The Lotus Seed. Each cause card is marked with a square and each effect card is marked with a circle, making it easy to support students who struggle with matching cause and effect relationships.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
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Cause and Effect Sentence Stems with The Lotus Seed

Understanding cause and effect is a key comprehension and language skill. The text structure of The Lotus Seed includes several examples of cause and effect relationships, making it easy to use as a springboard for modeling or independent practice.

This simple resource includes four sentence stems. Each sentence stem presents an effect. Students will use what they know about the book to fill in the cause of the effect.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment
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Writing with The Lotus Seed

The BookPagez extension activities are a great way to push student engagement beyond the pages of the text. Try using this activity with early finishers, with students who show a deeper connection with the text, or as a center activity.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment
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Determining Importance with The Lotus Seed (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer
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Making Connections with The Lotus Seed (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer
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Retelling & Summarizing with The Lotus Seed (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer
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Visualizing with The Lotus Seed (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer
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Writing with The Lotus Seed (Spanish)

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About the Book

The cover for the book The Lotus Seed
Title: The Lotus Seed
Author: Sherry Garland
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Themes: Family, Cultural Diversity, Perseverance
ISBN: 9780613023498
Publisher's Summary:
A young Vietnamese girl is forced to leave her homeland during a time of war, and takes with her a single lotus seed as a cherished reminder of her past. The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland is a moving picture book that tells the story of this girl's journey to a new country and the ways she keeps her cultural heritage alive through the symbolic lotus seed. As she grows older and becomes a grandmother, the seed remains a treasured family heirloom, connecting generations and keeping memories of Vietnam alive. The book gently explores universal themes of immigration, resilience, and the importance of family traditions. Garland's lyrical text, paired with evocative illustrations by Tatsuro Kiuchi, offers students a window into Vietnamese culture and the broader immigrant experience. The Lotus Seed is an excellent resource for teachers seeking to foster empathy, discuss cultural diversity, and celebrate the ways families honor their histories. Its gentle narrative and rich symbolism make it a powerful tool for classroom discussions on heritage, remembrance, and the meaning of home.
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