Book Study: The Cool Bean

Book Study: The Cool Bean (SEL focus on kindness)

This is another free resource for teachers from The Curriculum Corner.

Our book study on The Cool Bean by Jory John and Pete Oswald will be a great addition to your classroom. Add the book to your library if you don’t already own it.

The authors have also written the The Bad Seed and The Good Egg. We think kids will love this one just as much as the previous two!

Not only will students enjoy the story, there is also a good SEL (social emotional learning) connection to kindness.

Summary of The Cool Bean

The main bean is a kid who feels like he no longer fits in. The previous year he was a part of a group who are now considered the “Cool Beans.” He feels a little left behind and unsure of where he now belongs.

On a rough day, the “Cool Beans” came to his rescue. One by one they used kindness to help when the main bean was upset, embarrassed and alone.

The authors work to help children see that kindness is cool and that they have the ability to make others feel good about themselves.

While we have included a range of printables to make this fit into literature standards, we think this would be a great book to just read and discuss. Maybe come back to it later on when you need to review kindness and can also touch on some lit standards at the same time.

Book Study: The Cool Bean

Morning Entry Response Posters These can be enlarged on your poster maker or displayed on your interactive whiteboard. Students can respond to the prompt as they enter the classroom for the day. (We’ve included a blank poster for your own prompt.)

Digging into the Text A list of questions to guide your class your discussions. Choose the questions that fit your students. You will also find question cards that you can use in small groups.

Setting Goals Encourage your students to set their own kindness goal.

Story Map

Bookmarks Students can use these to mark spots fitting the request on the bookmarks. For example, one asks students to mark their favorite spot in the book.

Examining Feelings There is a list of possible feelings along with a response page. This might be a good one to talk about as a class and skip the paper and pencil activity.

Making Connections If you are looking for some skill practice, students can share their thinking as they listened to the story.

Other Response Pages We’ve included a few other choices for responses along with blank pages. You can enter your own prompts or have students fill in the pages.

All of the pages in color are also shared at the end of the file with a white background to help you save color ink if needed.

You can download this free SEL study on kindness here:

Book Study

Looking for more SEL lessons? We have them for you!

Hop on over to VariQuest where you will be able to find a complete SEL unit of study that we created.

Best of all, this great e-book is completely free!

It contains 10 lesson plans where we worked to link some of our favorite books to developing social emotional skills.

Grab your free copy here:

SEL Unit of Study

Need to purchase the book? You can grab it on Amazon. (contains affiliate link)

As with all of our resources, The Curriculum Corner creates these for free classroom use. Our products may not be sold. You may print and copy for your personal classroom use. These are also great for home school families!

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.