Students interview local Native Americans to explore their history, culture, and contributions to the region. They contact a local Native American organization, conduct an interview with a volunteer and write thank-you notes.

Students assess their own book club performance during today's lesson. They share what they wrote in their journals and discussed in their small groups. They critique their individual performances as well as the performance of their group.

Second graders identify homophones as words that sound alike but have different meanings. They, given a pair of homophones, are to explain the meanings of the words using gestures, role playing, or drawing a picture with their partner.

Students brainstorm all the possible scenarios that would help them tell a story in detail with the whole class and with partners. They create web outlines to create a name story and then illustrate it with creative grammar usage and...

Students, after reading Fahrenheit 451, brainstorm inventions that could have been in the novel. They present their invention to the class and writing an expository essay about their creation.

The fifth installment in a writing unit that culminates with a Hyperstudio illustrated group story project, this plan is ripe with ideas for ways to design group writing projects for elementary writers. Use the whole unit as a base from...

Class members create a PowerPoint presentation showing artifacts they would include in a time capsule. The artifacts and explanations reflect personal hobbies, grooming choices, school life, etc. A great way for class members to...

A discussion of the Supreme Court’s Opinion of Tinker v. Des Moines generates a discussion of the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment. Although the key elements of this activity are based on a video that is not included, the...

Learners examine causes and effects of Great Depression and its significance on twentieth-century life, analyze value of various types of historical information, specifically primary sources, and relate events, issues, problems, and...

Fifth graders determine how freedom comes with rights and responsibilities through literature and poetry about World War II. In this World War II lesson, 5th graders use the letters in the word "infamy" to write an acrostic poem. They...

Prepare to teach Jan Brett stories by taking a look at this teacher resource, which includes text-based questions, writing assignments, discussion ideas, and vocabulary practice for 18 different stories.

Students explore characterization in Little Women. In this literature lesson, students participate in written analysis and research in order to explore Alcott's characterization in the novel.

Inntroduce primary learners to essential critical reading strategies with an activity based on James Reeves' poem, "The Wind."  Learners listen as the poem is read, first as a riddle, and then re-read with the title visible. The...

Learners complete a character study using a database to compile information from a novel. They design a five slide presentation highlighting the character's reaction to different situations in the book. They write an acrostic poem using...

How did the women in France feel about their country’s involvement in World War II? Class groups are assigned a country involved in WWII, and individuals within the group adopt the point of view of leaders, laborers, businessmen, women,...

Here is a great way to have your students make audio postcards to share by recording a message on the computer. They write and revise an appropriate message about an object from home, choose a background, and font colors for the...

After listening to a story about Martin Luther King Jr., first graders answer questions about the text. They discuss the importance of the illustrations, identify the beginning, middle, and end of the story, and complete a writing...

Students choose a sport and promote a real or imaginary team by creating press releases, business cards, and ads or commercials.

Twelfth graders use computers and the Internet to research a specified area, word processors to prepare an essay, a digital camera, a video camera gather visuals, and a scanner to add visuals to a PowerPoint presentation as they discover...

Young readers demonstrate phonemic awareness in words and blends, and recognize 100 high-frequency words. Use a nursery rhyme to point out rhyming words, and change the words by putting a new letter at the beginning. Each learner will...

It's true: listening skills have to be taught and developed. Read this story about a tiger to your high school class. Then, without giving them a copy of the story, divide them into teams and have them attempt to answer a series of...

A video leads off this activity on fables, introducing the class to this important form of traditional storytelling. The group defines fable and hears an explanation of the origin of this type of folk tale. They summarize the story they...

Tenth graders explore narrative poetry. They analyze sections of a poem and present to groups. They compose their own narrative poems using pictures as prompts. They exchange their poems and analyze their classmate's poem.

Celebrate the arrival of winter with a reading of Jack Ezra Keats' book The Snowy Day. Engaging children by asking them about their own experiences in the snow, the teacher goes on to read the story...