Just Help! is part of our Starts With a Story Collection, which includes more than 600 picture book companions based on high quality children’s literature that support you in delivering highly-engaging interactive read alouds with follow up activities. Learn more about this children’s book below! - Jodi and the Starts With a Story Team
Â
SUMMARY
"Just Help!" by Sonia Sotomayor is inspired by Sonia's own family's desire to help others and the true story of her own life. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor takes young readers on a journey through a neighborhood where kids and adults, activists and bus drivers, friends and strangers all help one another to build a better world for themselves and their community. This story encourages readers to be kind to others and to look out for one another because providing a helping hand or a contagous smile can make a big difference and change the world for the better. "Just Help!" is the perfect book to inspire kindness and teamwork in the classroom and educate students on the powerful impact they can make in someone's day, teaching them that providing a little help and kindness can go a long way.
 USE THIS BOOK TO TEACH:
Our read aloud lesson plans for this picture book come with reading comprehension questions (with sample student responses), 30 writing prompts, teaching ideas for grammar skills, social emotional learning discussion ideas, and more. Check out our list below to get a sneak peek at some of the skills this resource teaches.
- Help students to analyze what the author’s purpose for writing the book might be.
- Cause and effect can be a difficult skill for students. This book is a perfect mentor text for teaching this skill.
- Identifying the theme, message, or moral is an important skill that takes a lot of practice. Use this story as an opportunity to help your students with this reading strategy.
- Teach a lesson on making connections to enhance comprehension.
- Practice making predictions throughout the book. Encourage students to check and see if their predictions were correct.
- Use examples of possessive nouns from the book to teach a lesson.
- Discuss the importance of kindness.
NO-PREP PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES:
If you are looking for “ready to go” activities for the first day of school, be sure to check out the book companion. With it you’ll receive all of the following resources to align with this specific book:
- comprehension questions
- 30Â 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
This book is a must have for your school or classroom library. Your students are going to love completing these activities for the book and you will be impressed with how much they learn. You will want to read this book to your class every year.
GET THE PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES
ADDITIONAL BOOK SUGGESTIONS
You and your students will love the similar books listed below, which can all be found in our free picture book list.
- Just Ask! by Sonia Sotomayor
- Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson
- Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Pena
TRY OUT A SAMPLE COMPANION
It's hard to explain how amazing the Starts with a Story book companions are because there is just so much goodness included in each one. It's best if you experience using one for yourself. Sign up below & we'll send you an entire book companion to try out for FREE!
