Grade 1 Lola Plants a Garden — Printable No-Prep Worksheet

This Grade 1 worksheet provides a ready-to-use activity for Anna McQuinn's 'Lola Plants a Garden.' Students will identify key story details through visual matching and complete a themed poem using a word bank. The resource is designed to assess reading comprehension and vocabulary recall immediately after a story reading.

At a Glance

• Grade: 1 · Subject: ELA, Reading Comprehension
• Standard: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.1 — Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
• Skill Focus: Story Details and Vocabulary
• Format: 2 pages · 25 problems · Answer key included · PDF
• Best For: Post-reading checks, literacy centers, sub plans
• Time: 15–20 minutes

What's Inside

This two-page resource features two activities. The first is a visual task where students identify characters and objects from the story among distractors. The second is a cloze poem where students use a word bank to fill in missing words, reinforcing vocabulary. A complete answer key is provided.

Zero-Prep Workflow

This worksheet is built for efficiency. The workflow is simple: 1. Print: The PDF prints in under a minute. 2. Distribute: Hand it out for independent work, morning starters, or literacy centers. 3. Review: Use the answer key for quick feedback. The entire process takes less than two minutes, making it a perfect resource for substitute plans.

Standards Alignment

This activity directly supports CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.1, which requires students to "ask and answer questions about key details in a text." By correctly identifying images and completing the poem based on the story's events, students demonstrate their ability to recall and use information from the text. The worksheet also touches on CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.4 by having students determine the meaning of unknown words. Both standard codes can be copied directly into lesson plans, IEP goals, or district curriculum mapping tools.

How to Use It

Use this resource after a read-aloud of 'Lola Plants a Garden' as a formative assessment. Observe which images students struggle with to reveal comprehension gaps. For the poem, encourage students to read it aloud to practice fluency. The worksheet is designed for a 15-20 minute independent work block.

Who It's For

Designed for first graders, this worksheet is also suitable for advanced kindergarteners or second-grade review. Its visual component makes it accessible for English Language Learners. It pairs well with a hands-on classroom activity like planting seeds or a science lesson on plants for a cross-curricular connection.

This comprehension worksheet for 'Lola Plants a Garden' provides focused practice on the foundational skill of recalling key details, a cornerstone of CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.1. By integrating visual selection with a cloze reading task, the activity uses a multi-modal approach to reinforce learning. Research from Fisher & Frey (2014) emphasizes that such text-dependent questions are crucial for building the close reading habits necessary for college and career readiness. The structure guides students to return to the text's events, either mentally or through a re-reading, to find evidence for their answers. This practice of grounding responses in textual detail is a critical step in developing early literacy skills. The worksheet serves as a practical tool for teachers to measure a student's ability to identify explicit information within a narrative before moving on to more complex inferential tasks.