The world is a stage, and so is your classroom! Hone the skills of the next generation of Tony® award winners with a set of exercises, reference pages, writing prompts, and excerpts from famous plays.

Dander from the show Twisted Whiskers and characters from My Little Pony are featured in this three part lesson that explores using story pyramids to scaffold ideas, adding sensory details to enrich writing, and editing using common...

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

Introduce your young readers to the book review. Groups of writers practice the basic steps of writing a book report and complete an Accordion-Book Summary activity. The lesson includes book report basics and directions to make...

Students observe modeling of the writing workshop. In this writing workshop lesson, students understand that the writing workshop will be taught throughout the year and each lesson will be a segment which will be discussed.

Germination is an amazing process that results in amazing things. The book The Tiny Seed is the inspiration for a set of activities that will help build early literacy, observation, language, and writing skills. The class observes how...

Students observe the growth of a seed into a plant. They plant their own seeds and record the growth of the plants and write about what they observe. They describe the germination of the seed and create a time line of the growth process...

Focused little scientists will flitter their arms back and forth across the room with excitement as they learn the life cycle of a butterfly and how living things grow and change over time.

First graders sequence story situations.  In this sequencing lesson, 1st graders read Charlie the Caterpillar and sequence his life cycle.  Students role play the story parts and sing a song about metamorphosis.

Young scholars participate in a class survey of their favorite activity to do in the snow and organize the results in a graph. They write a paragraph about the graph using language from a class-developed word web and include both an...

Learners listen to literature selection, describe life cycle of silkworm, discuss what they know about growth in living things, observe silkworms for one week and record observations in science journals, and review stages of growth.

What does it mean to grow? To germinate? For the plan detailed here, class members investigate the growth process of an oak tree while focusing on the beginning stages of planting and germination. They plant seeds and record observations...

Students construct a rainstick. In this music lesson, students investigate the history of the rainstick by reading the book Bringing the Rain to the Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema. Students express their feelings about the rain and create...

Students take the role of a science reporter and gather data for a newspaper article. Students create a question sheet. Students receive a copy of the Science Reporter's Journal task sheet. They complete the items on the sheet and...

Monsters take center stage! Elementary schoolers are assigned to write a descriptive paragraph by a toy company to help in designing a new monster for their toy line. One student composes the paragraph, another uses that to create a...

Everyone celebrates traditions in different ways. Young writers share the ways their families celebrate Thanksgiving with a journal writing prompt and discussion activity.

Young scholars discover gardening by documenting plants grown on school grounds.  In this botany instructional activity, students utilize digital cameras to capture images of plants on photo hikes which are turned into a slide show....

Young scholars practice their interviewing skills using the elements of questioning. They write and illustrate a past experience of theirs doing a philanthropic act. They share their stories and illustrations to complete the...

Young scholars apply their knowledge to identify waste solutions for their families and homes. Students generate an individual action plan that works for their family and create a magnet to display their waste plan. Young scholars apply...

Students create books with photographs as illustrations. In this book making lesson plan, students create books for different subjects to accompany what they are learning. They take photographs to match what they have written. 

An extensive discourse on strategies to teach writing skills to learning disabled children. Authors have developed an approach known as self-regulated strategy development (SRSD). In this paper they elaborate on the research they...