In this fine motor skills lesson plan, learners cut and paste items onto a snowman with no help from their teacher.  Students will use items, such as toothpicks, to help them glue small pieces.  Learners distiguish between...

Think beyond the animals and habitats we've already discovered and allow scholars to dream up their very own habitat and an animal that lives there. Class members present the new habitat and animal on a poster alongside an...

Students create colorful stained-glass Autumn window decorations. They shave crayons with scissors, melt the crayons in wax paper with an iron, and cut out a leaf pattern to display on windows.

Students decorate a clay pot with a variety of craft and clay materials and a craft stick with their photographs. They decorate and label their clay pot with their name, school, year, and designs, then sculpt fruits and vegetables using...

Have your class look for a pot of gold. Learners create a St. Patrick's Day mini-book. They use the worksheet pages included to cut out and color St. Patrick's Day symbols. They staple the pages together to create a booklet.

Here's a fresh take on a mythology unit. Use the myths of the Mayan and Aztec peoples of Mesoamerica instead of the more traditional Greek and Roman stories. This abstract suggests possible approaches and resources that can be...

A reading of Theodore Roethke’s dark "Root Cellar" and Sylvia Plath’s more abstract "Mirror" launches a discussion of imagery and personification in poetry.  After finding examples of personification in the poems, class members...

C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength provides the model for using dreams in narrative writing. After a discussion of the purpose of dreams in Lewis’s tale, class members craft a story in which their dreams play an essential role.

Pupils choose their favorite television show, craft and illustrate an advertisement for this show, and then write a short paragraph about why the show appeals to them. No provisions are made for children with limited or no viewing...

Class members use e-mail and the merry-go-round story format to create a science fiction story. Each writer begins by selecting one of three prompts, crafting the introductory paragraph and sending the paragraph to the next person on the...

Students study the Gullah culture by watching a video about Gullah, Gullah Island. They discuss the customs and crafts of the people such as basket weaving, food preparation, pottery, and quilt making. While working in centers, they make...

Class members select a culture from a provided list and research the customs, beliefs, traditions, clothing, and environment of this group. They then create an idea web and craft this information into a poem. The lesson is short on...

Explore the history of the American novel in the contexts of literature and US history. How does a novel or piece of writing from a particular time showcase the mood during that historical period? After conducting research and discussing...

A one-page template provides primary writers with a graphic organizer to assist them in drafting a persuasive paragraph. Labeled the “Hamburger Model” because of its appearance, the worksheet asks pupils to craft an introduction, provide...

Are your middle schoolers writing a sonnet? Here's a worksheet to help them craft their first sonnet! Make edits as you see necessary. 

How can you tell if a prompt is expository or narrative? Help your learners identify key words in writing prompts to determine how they should craft their essays.

The Scarlet Letter is a treasure trove of topics awaiting exploration by readers of Nathaniel Hawthorne's romantic opus. Whether looking for imagery (light/dark, mirror, scarlet letters), symbols (static or evolving), ironies, etc.,...

Kathy Henderson’s book And the Good Brown Earth introduces the class to how a vegetables grows and changes over time. They use different types of lettuce to do a close study of this quick-growing vegetable. Learners consider the look,...

Did Shakespeare really write all that stuff? After viewing a trailer for the film, Anonymous and reading Stephen Marche’s article “Wouldn’t It Be Cool If Shakespeare Wasn’t Shakespeare?” class groups read articles about the Shakespeare...

Designed for teachers, this resource identifies problems learners face when attempting a research project and approaches instructors can use to help their class members overcome these obstacles. Suggestions are included for how to help...

A fan of magic squares vocabulary activities? Readers use terms drawn from Gary Paulsen’s Canyons to complete an exercise. The worksheet, an answer sheet, as well as complete directions for crafting a magic square, are included.

Planning on assigning a book review? High school and college-level writers will benefit from a presentation that provides step-by-step directions for crafting a review. Before, during, and after reading tips are included.

What is the sharecropping system? What role did it play in the post-Civil War economy of the South? Who were the sharecroppers? Who employed them? How were they paid? To answer these questions, kids examine a series of sharecropper...

Feeling harried? Experiencing a sense of foreboding? Learners craft sentences using words from Homer’s The Odyssey. The two exercises included here are sure to stoke their enthusiasm.