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...

Focus on similarities and differences with a jigsaw activity that requires pupils to compare Waiting for the Biblioburro to other texts they have read. To prepare, class members first respond to text-dependent questions, moving on to...

Expose your class to Waiting for the Biblioburro, narrative nonfiction that will act as the bridge between ficiton and informational texts to come. Class members do a close reading of the text, looking at excerpts instead of the whole...

What kind of text features help children build a strong vocabulary? Class members use text features such as headers to unpack new vocabulary words. They create vocabulary journals in which they will write what they think the definition...

We need to talk. Learners participate in a science talk by discussing the idea of how insects are important to the rainforest. They record notes about their conversations as they talk. For homework, pupils add to their field journals.

Ease into informational text with the lesson suggested here. Part of a unit series, the lesson draws from previous lessons and acts as a natural moment to add in informational text. Class members read one section of My Librarian is a...

Give your young learners the chance to discover more about countries in their world community with a research project. Class members write reports on an assigned country and include such major features as geography, important historical...

What is the connection between equivalent ratios? Class members first find the multiplication factor used to create equivalent ratios. Next, they take that information to determine whether ratios are equivalent. The second lesson on...

Reading comprehension and note-taking skills are practiced as young ecologists embark on this journey. Explorers visit a website where they will read about three ecosystems that are in danger. They use interactive programs to build a...

Students complete a simulated book order form for their class. In this book club lesson, students budget and plan an order form for their fellow students, discussing why they chose specific books.

Enhance your writing with describing words. After reading 12 simple sentences, learners circle the adjectives and underline the nouns they describe. Additionally, they write a few of their own sentences with adjectives at the bottom of...

Determining which statements represent fact or the author's opinion in an integral part of reading informational text. Encourage seventh graders to read a passage about Barack Obama and the city of Chicago, as well as a passage focused...

How can you tell when an author is expression an opinion or stating a fact? Use two short reading selections to emphasize the difference between a statement that you can prove and one that you can't. The first passage explains food...

Boiling down any division problem to a one-digit divisor problem sure makes estimation easy. The lesson shows how to estimate division problems by using place value understanding and basic arithmetic facts to simplify the division. Some...

Make math much simpler with mental math methods. The 16th installment in a series of 21 looks at ways scholars can apply mental math to convert division problems into easier problems with the same quotient. Multiplying or dividing both...

Focus on presentation techniques with this lesson, which prompts middle schoolers give an impromptu speech. They practice public speaking by giving a short unprepared speech. Some preparations are made to include an introduction, body,...

Get your class thinking about advertising with this lesson plan. Over the course of 15 days, your class will discuss advertising techniques, study the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos, and analyze the persuasive techniques of...

Take an in-depth look at a passage from Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie. Included here is the reading passage as well as a step-by-step procedure for reading the text, a set of text-dependent questions, and a final writing...

Scholars learn to create scatter plots and investigate any relationships that exists between the variables with a lesson that also show them that statistical relationships do not necessarily indicate a cause-and-effect...

Class members investigate relationships between two variables in the seventh installment of a 16-part module that teaches scholars how to find and describe patterns in scatter plots. Young mathematicians consider linear/nonlinear...

Discover how trend lines can be useful in understanding relationships between variables with a lesson that covers how to informally fit a trend line to model a relationship given in a scatter plot. Scholars use the trend line to make...

Class members come up with a hypothesis on the number of decimal digits in the product of two decimals. Learners work in groups to complete several decimal multiplication problems. The results help groups develop a conjecture on the...

Scholars learn to divide multi-digit numbers using the standard algorithm in the 14th installment in a module of 21 parts. They get plenty of practice with the algorithm by completing a worksheet.

Knowing the standard algorithm opens up a whole new world of division. Scholars learn how to convert division involving decimals to division involving whole numbers to use the standard algorithm. Knowing how to multiply with powers of...