Chances are, you have a student in your class that is anxious or worried at school. As teachers, we want to do everything we can to make these students feel comfortable in the classroom and help them find ways to manage their anxieties. We love the book Ruby Finds a Worry it is a great way to start a conversation about worrying with your students. Teachers can use this book as an opportunity to teach students that it is normal to worry and share strategies for managing anxiety and worries. - Jodi and the Starts With a Story Team
SUMMARY
Ruby was an ordinary, happy girl until one day she found a worry. It started out very small, but grew bigger and bigger overtime. The worry followed Ruby everywhere she went and she thought it might never go away. Rudy stopped enjoying the things she used to love.
Ruby was in the park one day when she noticed a boy sitting alone, he looked sat. The boy looked like how she felt and Ruby realized that other people have worries too. Ruby sat down with the boy and asked him what was on his mind. As he started talking, Ruby noticed his worry began to shrink. She started to talk to the boy about her worry and it got so small it was barely there. While Ruby still gets a worry from time to time, she now knows how to take care of it, by talking to someone!
USE THIS BOOK TO TEACH:
Ruby Finds a Worry is such a great book for teaching a lesson about social emotional learning. However, there are also some great academic lessons that can be taught. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Practice making personal connections to the story. This is an important reading strategy because it strengthens students' understanding of the text.
- Teach students to identify the main idea of a book using details and major events.
- Integrate poetry to your read aloud by having students write poems related to the story.
- Teach students to write thoughtful book reviews.
- Practice identifying suffixes, prefixes and base words.
- Teach a lesson on homophones using examples from the book.
- Discuss strategies that students can use when they are feeling worried.
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
So often, teachers are expected to teach social emotional learning lessons but are not given any resources to do so. With our book companion for Ruby Finds a Worry we provide lesson ideas for various social emotional learning topics as well as specific discussion questions. In addition to that, you’ll receive comprehension questions, writing prompts, vocabulary and ideas for grammar lessons. You are going to love how comprehensive this resource is!
GET THE PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES
ADDITIONAL BOOK SUGGESTIONS
You and your students will also love these similar books:
- After the Fall by Dan Santat
- Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes
- Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival
- Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall
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!
