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Cloudette: Promoting Perseverance in Your Students

If you have not yet read “Cloudette” by Tom Lichtenheld, you are in for a treat.  Cloudette is an adorable little cumulus cloud.  While she is charming and cute, she is much smaller than all of the other clouds.  The story of Cloudette will teach your students perseverance and that no matter your size, you can make a difference.  As you follow Cloudette through the story in her quest for greatness, you and your students will fall in love with her persistence.  

Being small has advantages for a cloud, like always being able to see the fireworks, but Cloudette feels she needs a purpose.  She wants to do more, just as the bigger clouds are making storms and rain, and creating enough snow for snow days.  When a storm blows her far from home, she finds her purpose, new friends, and new possibilities.  

Skills to teach with “Cloudette”:

  • Theme
  • Setting
  • Inferences
  • Point of view
  • Predicting
  • Retelling
  • Characters
  • problem/solution
  • Author’s purpose
  • Personification

Important Discussions:

  • Feelings of inadequacy
  • Setting goals
  • Entering new situations

Here are 5 meaningful activities to accompany “Cloudette.”

5 Favorite Activities for “Cloudette”:

1. We are all unique

Just as Cloudette is special, even though she is small, we are all special too.  Discuss how we are each unique and if students are comfortable sharing, have them share something about themselves that is unique.  Students can write about why they are proud of this quality.

2. Finding motivation from others

Cloudette does not get discouraged.  She watches the bigger clouds make rain and rainbows and it makes her want to do big things too.  The clouds motivate her to want to learn and grow as a cloud.  Talk with students about how we can look up to someone, no matter their age, and find motivation from them.  It can be someone we know, a family member, or a famous person; we can all find someone to look to as motivation for things that we want to accomplish, whether big or small.

3. Setting goals

Cloudette has really big goals as she watches the other clouds.  She wants to help a garden grow.  Brainstorm ideas for goals students can set in school and at home.  What sort of goals can they work for, what kind of goals are sustainable and reachable for them, and how can they reach them?  Discuss together and have students set their own goals.

4. Accepting and spreading praise

When Cloudette finally finds her purpose and is able to fill a pond for frogs, even the bigger clouds are impressed by her.  We all know how it feels to receive praise and we understand the feeling when someone recognizes your hard work.  Students can think about a time when someone’s positive praise made them feel special and write about how they felt.  You can collectively think of ways to uplift others too.  When you think aloud as a group and students openly share, they may be more likely to carry out these uplifting words or phrases beyond just this conversation.

5. Trying new things

After Cloudette accomplishes the pond, she wonders what else a little cloud can do.  She is ready to try new things!  Have students share something that they have never tried but would like to do.  Your students can be cheerleaders for each other to try the things they haven’t yet and reach their goals!

Cloudette is sure to be a new favorite character for you and your students.  You’ll be cheering her on, laughing along, and clapping for her when she succeeds.  It is a great story of growth mindset and perseverance.  

I hope you and your students love it!

You can grab a free one-page guide for using this book in your classroom here:

You can find more of my favorite read-aloud books HERE.

And read more about why I think reading aloud is so important HERE.

You might like this blog post about self-love.

Check out all of my favorite read-aloud books and grab free guides for reading them aloud HERE.

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Happy Teaching!

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