Miss Nelson Is Missing Lesson Plan

A Language Arts Lesson Plan for Approximately Second Graders

A group of students sitting at their desks writing

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Submitted by Beth

This lesson uses the book Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard and James Marshall.

Instructional Objective: To increase the children's appreciation for literature, foster vocabulary growth, practice prediction skills, practice speaking to groups, develop creative writing skills, and facilitate group interaction through discussion.

Target Vocabulary: misbehaving, unpleasant, ruler, missed, detective, wicked, discouraged, ceiling, whispered, giggled.

Anticipatory Set: Ask the children to get into pairs and discuss a time when they lost something. Then, display the cover of the book and ask for ideas on what might happen in the book.

Statement of Objective: "As I read the book, I want you to think about what's happening and consider how the story might end. Imagine how you would feel if you were a student in Miss Nelson's class."

Direct Instruction: Read the book while clearly showing the pictures to the class. Stop the story in the middle.

Guided Practice: Ask the class to use a piece of paper to write or draw (depending on level) about how they imagine the story will conclude. Another possible guided practice activity for this book is Reader's Theater.

Closure: Group discussion where individual students volunteer to share their conclusions with the rest of the class. Then, the teacher proceeds to finish reading the book so that the students can see how the author finished the book.

Extension Activities

Here are a few extension activities that you can do with your students.

  • Miss Nelson is Missing Poster - Have students create a missing poster for Miss Nelson. Then, have them post their artwork in the hallway.
  • Predicting - Have students predict what they think happened to Miss Nelson. Have each student write a brief paragraph and take turns reading it aloud to the class.
  • Compare and Contrast - Have students create a Venn diagram to compare and contrast Miss Nelson to their own teacher.
  • Video - Have students watch an adaptation of Miss Nelson is Missing on YouTube.
  • Character Traits - Have students create a Popsicle stick puppet with Miss Nelson on one side and Viola Swamp on the other. The teacher holds up a character trait and reads it. Then, the children decide which character they think that word describes and flip their Popsicle stick to the appropriate face. Examples of the words you can use are: cranky, creepy, cruel, strict, sweet, kind, loving, etc.
  • Book Activity - Have students write their own story but this time the students are the ones who are missing, not the teacher. In a brief essay, they have to write​ what happened to the class when the teacher came to school but the students did not.