Today’s spotlight is the book One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia. This is an inspiring story about how the women of Gambia worked together to combat litter in their home. - Jodi and the Starts With a Story Team
SUMMARY
The book, One Plastic Bag, teaches readers about Isatou Ceesay and the women of Gambia. For a while in Gambia, people were littering. They would throw plastic bags on the ground and the pile of trash was getting bigger and bigger. Time passed and Isatou grew up.
One day she learned that the goats were eating the plastic bags and dying. She realized she needed to do something. Isatou picked up the bags and she and a group of other women washed them. As Isatou watched her sister crochet she had an idea. They decided to make the plastic bags into string and crochet bags out of the trash.
At first, everyone laughed at the women. But over time people started to buy their creations. The trash pile started to get smaller and eventually Gambia was beautiful and trash free once more.
USE THIS BOOK TO TEACH:
Check out our list of ways you can use One Plastic Bag in your classroom.
- Discuss the message the author is trying to send with this story.
- Discuss the text features of nonfiction books.
- Have students write about recycling and why it is important.
- Ask students to write a how-to book about taking care of the earth.
- Introduce new prefixes and suffixes.
- Review action verbs and prepositions.
- Discuss the importance of making good choices.
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
- 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
Whether you need comprehension questions for your read aloud or you’re looking for activities to use with this book, we have you covered. Our book companion for One Plastic Bag provides teachers with everything they need to use this book in their classroom. With this companion you won’t need any resources other than the book!
GET THE PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES
ADDITIONAL BOOK SUGGESTIONS
You and your students will also love these similar books:
- Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle
- The Girl Who Thought In Pictures by Julia Finley Mosca
- Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet
- Akiak by Robert J. Blake
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!
