You know the Very Hungry Caterpillar, but do you know The Tiny Seed? If not, let us introduce you to this wonderful children’s book by the famed author Eric Carle. Beyond being a wonderful picture book to read with kids of all ages, The Tiny Seed is excellent for teaching literacy in preschool.
Ready to see how? Come along with us as we share with you The Tiny Seed read aloud we created for preschoolers. Complete with everything from pre-reading comprehension questions to a final craftivity, The Tiny Seed Preschool Activities in this read aloud are sure to help your readers grow!
The Tiny Seed Summary
Before we explore how this book will help your budding readers grow, let’s take a glimpse into the wonderful and charming world of The Tiny Seed to see what your students will read about.
The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle follows the journey of a tiny seed as it travels through the seasons, ultimately growing into a beautiful flower. The Tiny Seed doesn’t have an easy journey though.
As the wind carries the seed away from its pod and over different landscapes it faces numerous challenges, such as harsh weather conditions and hungry birds. However, despite these obstacles, the tiny seed perseveres and uses its resilience and determination to survive.
This enriching story is not only told through words but images too. Each page is complete with Eric Carle’s signature illustrations in bold primary colors that engage the senses and bring the seed’s journey to life. Between the beauty of the illustrations and wonderful words, The Tiny Seed is a classic picture book that kids will enjoy reading and learning from.
The Tiny Seed Read Aloud
While engaging young readers with colorful illustrations is an excellent way to get them excited about reading, it is just the starting point. Beyond the excitement of the pictures and the engaging storytelling are dozens of opportunities to help students build their literacy skills.
With a structured read aloud, students are guided through various comprehension checks that help them develop both their literacy skills and critical thinking. Moreover, helping them to learn to enjoy reading as they see their thinking grow.
To further help students enjoy the process of reading, it is helpful to provide students with a familiar learning format. This is why we built our PreK read aloud for The Tiny Seed using our tried and true read aloud format.
This read aloud format was developed through years of hands-on research in our very own classrooms! Furthermore, we have continued to update our read alouds based on current research and most importantly, based on the wants and needs of our teachers.
Here is an overview of everything you will find inside this PreK read aloud for The Tiny Seed:
- Detailed Lesson Plans
- Whole group response to texts activities
- Graphic organizers and worksheets
- Writing prompt
- Craftivity
- Vocabulary cards
- Quiz
These various learning activities have been designed specifically with preschoolers in mind. Part of this includes providing the students with several opportunities to revisit a text. Revisiting the text engages students in thinking about what they are reading while also helping them find more ways to connect to the text. It also provides more opportunities for kids to develop an appreciation for reading.
Now that you have a general idea of the types of activities you’ll find in our read aloud for The Tiny Seed, let’s keep digging to learn more about each one.
Comprehension Activities for The Tiny Seed
At the core of all of our read aloud packets is reading comprehension. This begins even before students open the book with before reading questions.
Before reading questions introduce students to the book by asking them questions about what they notice about the title, cover illustration, and author. This helps them get curious about what they will be reading as well as make connections to previous things they have read.
In addition to before reading questions we have also included an activity to help students make predictions about the story. In this activity students will make a prediction on one side of the paper and then after reading they will add their conclusion.
Teaching preschoolers how to make predictions helps guide their reading by giving them an outcome to look for. Furthermore, in this particular story, this reading skill is used for cross curricular exploration when discussing how to make a prediction in science.
While students are reading, they will continue to engage with the book through additional comprehension questions. These are designed to be completed as a whole class. In addition, you will find several questions to check for understanding after reading.
Informational Texts about Seeds
Beyond reading The Tiny See, this read aloud is unique in that we have added 3 bonus texts!
- All About Plants!
- How Seeds Travel
- A Plant Grows
These three bonus texts are short informational texts that explore events from The Tiny Seed in the real world. These informational texts provide students with an opportunity to make real world connections with the picture book which is a helpful tool in building literacy skills. Furthermore, this provides a connection between science and reading to help students make connections across content areas.
While we know your students will enjoy and benefit from the addition of the three informational texts, that is only one part of the read aloud. Let’s look at some of the other amazing reading activities your students will benefit from.
The Tiny Seed Sequencing Activity
This read aloud includes a cut and paste sequencing activity where students put the different steps of a plant growing in order.
In addition, students also practice sequencing as they follow arrows to draw and write the seasons in order. Then, they can get to organize the events in the book based on which season they take place in.
Students further analyze details from the book to determine what is helpful for seeds and what is harmful. They demonstrate their understanding by placing the correct image under the column labeled “Helpful” or “Harmful.”
Vocabulary for The Tiny Seed
Vocabulary is an important part of literacy development. Therefore, we have created an age appropriate vocabulary activity using images. Preschool students will learn about four key vocabulary words by first seeing an image with the word. Then, students demonstrate their understanding of these words by choosing which picture represents the vocabulary word.
PreK Quiz for The Tiny Seed
If you would like to further assess students, we have provided a quiz for The Tiny Seed that is perfect for Prek. Like the vocabulary activity, this quiz uses images. For example, when students are asked “How does the seed sail in the story?” students can select from an image of wind, an image of rain, or an image of the sun.
The Tiny Seed Writing Activity
As a teacher you already know that writing is one of the best ways for students to further develop their reading skills. Therefore, we always include a writing activity in our read alouds.
In this read aloud, students are prompted to write about what they know about seeds and plants. Since preschoolers are all developing their writing skills at different times, you’ll find three different writing pages to choose from.
All three pages include the same prompt, space to draw what they know about seeds and plants, and space to write about what they know. However, how much they draw and write varies depending on the worksheet you give them. This provides an easy way to support differentiated instruction in your classroom and meet the needs of all students.
Spring Read Alouds for Kids
As mentioned earlier, this read aloud for The Tiny Seed is designed to cover several days of learning. Therefore, providing you and your preschoolers with anywhere from one to two weeks of reading activities to explore the story of The Tiny Seed.
Spring is more than two weeks though. So, if you want to continue to build on students’ familiarity with this read aloud, we have several other Spring Read Alouds for kids to choose from.
Just like we did with this beloved picture book by Eric Carle, we paired our beloved read aloud format with other popular children’s books to create dozens of preschool read alouds. Below are some of our favorites for spring:
- Earth Day Every Day
- Easter Bunny’s Assistant
- Me and my Amazing Body Read Aloud
- Tiny T. Rex
- Dear Zoo
- The Very Greedy Bee
Don’t forget to explore our read alouds for the rest of the year too!
