Curated OER
Identifying Missing Words
How do you figure out the meaning of a word you don't know? Young readers develop skills to identifying missing words in a story using context clues. Picture clues are used to identify covered words in the story I Can’t Get My Turtle to...
Curated OER
What Category do I Best Fit Into?
Use this pre-reading exercise to help learners sort familiar objects into categories. For each of these three sets, they draw a line from the object to the category in which it belongs. There are two categories for each set. If...
Curated OER
Middle Sound Segmenting Accuracy
Mico the puppet wants to play a game! Can you figure out which picture card he's thinking of if he only says the middle sound? Choose three picture cards from the extensive library provided here, making sure scholars know what word each...
Scholastic
Helen Keller: An Inspiring Life (Biography Mini-Book)
Inspire young readers with this printable biography of Helen Keller. Including a timeline, glossary, and realistic illustrations with supporting captions, this is a great resource for not only teaching children about this amazing...
Curated OER
Labyrinths
Whether studying metaphors or Greek mythology, this labyrinth project is a fantastic lesson plan to add to your unit. It includes two versions of the labyrinth; making it with yarn or stone. If your materials are limited, you can even...
Curated OER
Quick as a Cricket
Students explore similes through Quick as a Cricket. In this similes instructional activity, students investigate what a simile is and recognize them when they see them. Students write similes about themselves and...
Curated OER
When Turtle Grew Feathers
Students explore the Choctaw Native American tribe. In this cross curriculum literacy and U.S. history lesson, students locate where the Choctaw Indians lived on a United States map. Students listen to When Turtle Grew...
Illustrative Mathematics
Grandfather Tang's Story
It's amazing the complex figures that can be made using only a few simple shapes. Following a class reading of the children's book Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert, young mathematicians use sets of tangrams to create models...
Illustrative Mathematics
Start/Stop Counting II
Take stroll around the classroom while teaching young mathematicians to count fluently with this whole-group math activity. The teacher starts things off by walking around the room while counting up from the number one and continues...
Curated OER
Let's Read For Speed!
Explore reading for fluency and speed with your class. They discuss reading faster, smoother, and with more expression. Practice reading with fluency using one minute timed reads. They read "Tin Man Fix-It." and record how many words...
Curated OER
The All About Me Poster
First and second graders become familiar with the components of a biography. In this language arts activity, pupils create an "All About Me" page using components of a biography. They also create an interractive poster, and work with a...
Curated OER
Open wide...and say Ahh!
Participate in an emerging literacy lesson 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.
Curated OER
Learning About Prediction
The skill of prediction as a reading strategy is explored. Learners are shown how to use clues within a story, along with pictures, to make predictions as to what's going to happen in the story. A clever in-class game which uses objects...
Curated OER
Introduce Middle Sounds Segmenting (Mico Version)
Mico the puppet offers a phoneme challenge for emerging readers: can they find the object with the middle sound they hear? Use the fantastic set of full-color picture cards to play this game with small groups or even the whole class....
Curated OER
Word Center
Construct spelling words through a Making Words activity. Learners create words at various levels using onsets, rimes, suffixes, long and short vowels, and word families. They write words as they create them and compare the words with...
Curated OER
Iggy the Penguin
Take your young word detectives on a hunt for the /i/ sound. Use the tongue twister about Iggy the penguin to help learners identify the target sound. Then learners are given several words, and they have to use their detective skills to...
Curated OER
Who Wrote That?
Scholars creatively respond to writing prompts. They respond to writing prompts that reveal clues regarding their personalities and then use the prompts written in class to guess the prompts that belong to their classmates.
Curated OER
Puzzle Page
Who says your budding readers are too young for crossword puzzles? Scholars use visual clues instead of written ones to complete single-syllable words. They fill in the initial letter for each of six words, and a second letter for one of...
Curated OER
Introduce Onset-Rime Blending
Mico (or your favorite puppet) helps emergent readers recognize words from segmented phonemes. Explain to learners that he struggles with pronouncing words and needs their help. Model how Mico segments sounds in single-syllable words....
Weston Wood
Joseph Had a Little Overcoat
Create a cross-curricular learning experience based on the children's book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat with this collection of learning activities. Starting with a class reading of the story, children go on to learn about the...
Curated OER
Beginning to Read
Students explore various books read by their classmates outside of school. After reading books of their choice, the class creates a bulletin board summarizing their main ideas of the book and their opinion of the book using Flat Stanley.
Curated OER
Comprehension: Identify the Main Idea from Text
Children in first grade listen and read along with the teacher to practice main idea identification. They use the provided reading passages to read, locate the main idea and supporting details. This is a fully scripted activity which...
Curated OER
Amazing Autobiographies
Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience. They apply knowledge of language structure,...
Curated OER
Sports Lesson Plan
Have your class participate in a variety of sports and craft activities using this resource. With sports as the theme, learners work on art projects. Students create soccer ball prints, a three dimensional football, and a sports collage.