Students read "The Great Kapok" and choose to agree or disagree with the main character's decision. They gather and organize details from multiple sources to defend their standpoints. They begin prewriting steps of process writing.

What are your youngsters really good at? Use this resource to make a list of the five most important things they do each day, what their skills and talents are, and which of their talents they enjoy the most. A great way to start an...

Participate in an emerging literacy activity that focuses on the skill of phonemic awareness! The phoneme of choice is the letter "o". They need to use letter recognition in conjunction with the sound.

Learning how to interact and work cooperatively in a team is an essential skill, both in school and the world beyond the classroom. Pupils use a self-check, group skills worksheet to evaluate their behavior in a recent group situation,...

Reinforce the actions, emotions, and characteristics that determine what a character is like by having your middle schoolers create a biopoem using the model presented here. You could engage them first by having them write a poem about...

Do people really need “a newer, bigger Holocaust” in order to change? Or is it possible that by making text-to-self connections to the stories of others people that they can change? In order to connect to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, class...

Continue your study of the short story with the next lesson in this fourteen-lesson series. After wrapping up a study of "Hills Like White Elephants" through a quiz and discussion of the setting, learners are introduced to the final...

Designed to be used with a showing of the 1951 version of The Red Badge of Courage staring Audie Murphy, this learning guide includes discussion questions, suggestions for activities, and topics that can be discussed with parents.

Pupils study the life experiences of people who lived in colonial Boston prior to the American Revolution. They define key terms including Loyalist and Patriot. They write a journal entry as Nathaniel Hurd, a silversmith.

As the title suggests, this lesson is designed for a foster care therapy group. C.S. Lewis' novel provides children an opportunity to discuss life issues vicariously through fictional characters. However, the discussion questions and...

What is philanthropy? To find out learners explore the concept through class discussion. They survey, make decisions, implement, and reflect on a service project intended to benefit their community.

Youngsters visit the classroom library to complete various reading activities, pushing their motivation to read! They will discuss different library books and read two specific books that use "Building Block" reading skills. They also...

Is Nick Carraway a reliable narrator for The Great Gatsby? Does he really, as his father directed, reserve judgment? Groups rewrite selected scenes from chapter four and five of the novel from the point of view of another character and...

Students explore U.S. history by participating in a government activity. In this Constitution lesson, students identify the role government plays in our society and the differences the British colonies had in the early 18th century....

Students practice organizing their vocabulary words in an online organizer tool. In this vocabulary lesson, students read a text and take notes. Additionally, students organize their vocabulary words into an online "Alphabet Organizer"...

The ninth in a fourteen-lesson series, this plan marks a sort of midpoint in a unit devoted to the study of short stories. Pupils learn about theme and work on their short story projects by adding to their blogs, checking in with the...

Students read a short story about a young Iraqi boy, which opens up classroom discussion about the difficulties some immigrant students face, especially in the days after September 11.

Here is an interesting way to teach the present perfect and present perfect continuous. Individuals practice these verb tenses as well as the simple past by asking a partner questions about an imaginary biography. The biography...

Students analyze close readings of poems, looking up words in the dictionary, and discussing the major parts of dictionary definitions, including word origin and parts of speech. They examine sonnets, then compare/contrast their findings.

Pupils, over an extended time, read and explain the nonsense words of Lewis Carroll's poem, "Jabberwocky". They infer the meaning of the poem using visualizing as well as decoding skills. While written for first graders, this is easily...

You might not be able to put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes but you can generate interest in A Midsummer’s Night Dream in that length of time. As an introduction to Shakespeare’s comedy, pairs of students assume the roles of...

Primary students will use the five "W" questions for reading comprehension as they read silently to themselves so that they can understand and remember what they have read. They then read The Velveteen Rabbit aloud, discussing the five...

Do you know what a fallacy is? Discuss this term and its meaning with your class. Then, talk about why making generalizations about a large group of people isn't the best thing to do. As a group, study the included letter excerpt. It...

First graders engage in a literature study that helps them to focus on the concepts of goods and services. They describe the various skills people may need at home, school, and work. Students create a map of businesses found in the city.