What would you do if you got an extra day every week? Partners share some information about their routines and lives and write compositions about one another based on the information. Each partner tries to guess what the other person...

Fridays can be a challenge with learners already dreaming about their weekends. Here's a routine that will bring their minds back to the classroom. Read aloud the beginning of a story, sure to engage your listeners.

Hopefully your students have had some introduction already to dance movement before you do this lesson. If they have, then giving them ribbons and instructing them to make up a little routine should be a fun activity. Encourage your...

A lesson looks at the Pilgrims and Wampanoag tribe during the first Thanksgiving. Scholars compare and contrast information presented by an online activity then discuss their findings. Learners examine the two group's daily routines and...

Kindergarteners build vocabulary by learning about categorization. They discuss the attributes of living and non-living things. As a class, they view and sort pictures into each category. They discuss the word category and what it means.

Build a strong classroom community with a closing routine that asks each participant to share something they appreciate about their classmate(s), issue an apology if they may have hurt someone's feelings or an "aha" moment when they...

Developing engaging opening and closing class routines is essential in post-COVID, face-to-face classrooms. The 7th routine of 15 in the Building Community series invites participants to begin class by reflecting on a success (rose), a...

Class members create literary mandalas for two characters from Maus, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about his father’s experiences with the Holocaust. After finding quotes that reveal three good traits and three bad traits of each...

Pogrom, schlepped, meshuga. Kapo, reich, Wehrmacht. As part of a unit study of Maus I and II, readers use a list-group-label (LGL) strategy for vocabulary drawn from Art Spiegelman's famous graphic novels. The focus of the activity is...

The future can be yours to see with a bit of planning. That's the takeaway from a routine that asks participants to first brainstorm a list of personal and academic goals. Individuals then select one to focus on for the week, identify...

Pink and Say, a picture book by Patricia Polacco, and an anticipation guide, set the stage for a reading of Mississippi Trial, 1955, Chris Crowe's novel based on the true story of the murder of Emmett Till. Instructional routines, the...

The first lesson plan in a unit that uses Christopher Paul Curtis' award-winning depression-era novel, Bud, Not Buddy, as the anchor text establishes the routines that will be used throughout the unit.

Sometimes scientists learn more from unexpected findings than from routine analysis! Junior oceanographers dive deep to explore hydrothermal vent communities in the fourth lesson plan in a series of five. Scholars examine data and look...

Four lessons, each following the same routine, explore the careers of a teacher, nurse, electrician, geologist, plumber, and police officer. After listening to a read-aloud and thoughtful discussion, young scholars construct puppets...

Similes and metaphors make writing more beautiful and detailed, but can be a little harder to decipher during a first reading. Use a passage from The Man Who Loved Words to show young readers how to think through passages that...

Whole-heartedly agree! I sort of agree. Disagree! Class members indicate their stance on a controversial statement by participating in a Barometer activity.

Here's a great way to build community during the first days of the new school year. Participants read personal narratives, then craft and share their stories with others.

Having a diverse and well-developed vocabulary make for both good readers and good writers. The class discusses basic grammar, such as nouns, verb, and adjectives. They then view a series of pictures and work as a class to create simple...

This resource is more of a suggestion than a full lesson plan. It explains how young pre-readers can work with their teacher to practice blending phonemes to make words. The class watches the teacher as she says and orally segments a...

Kids learn about the concept of nouns. They practice identifying nouns by sorting words into categories. As the teacher holds up each word, the class reads it in unison, then they take turns identifying it as a noun or non noun word....

How can breakfast help you to avoid feeling sluggish and distracted throughout the day? After reading informational articles, learners will discuss how to overcome obstacles to eating breakfast, brainstorm ideas for quick breakfasts, and...

Ask your learners to synthesize what they know about Waiting for the Biblioburro by writing a well-organized paragraph. Young writers focus on using transition words and including specific details in their paragraphs. The plan allows for...

Assess what self-help techniques your students know for dealing with upset emotions with this conversational activity. The teacher begins by role playing as an upset individual, using visual images as prompts, and then asks students...

Prior to reading Maus I and II, class members fill in a KWL chart to determine what they want to learn and how to find information about World War II and the Holocaust. Consider gathering packets of information and research sites before...