Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

Reader's Theater is a great way to build fluency, intonation, and dramatic flare. The class reads the theater piece, "The New Friends" paying attention to how they express emotion and feeling as they read. They discuss the use of plot,...

Who is Doctor DeSoto? Start by playing a video clip (included). Discuss different methods of persuasion, and then analyze two different persuasive letter examples. What should your class be looking for? Send them off to work in groups...

Combine art, math, language arts, drama, and delicious Jell-o with a instructional activity based on the African folktale Anansi and the Tug o' War. Kids make predictions and discuss plot points of the story before joining in...

Point of view is important when choosing a narrator. Help young writers distinguish between first and third person point of view with an activity that features excerpts from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. After reading...

What do you see? Young reader tap into the visualization process as they listen to or read a fiction story and fill out a graphic organizer. Model this first with a think-aloud, showing scholars how you visualize a familiar story. For...

Model for emergent readers how to write a story by interpreting picture clues. For guided practice a second book is used, and then pupils work independently or with an adult to write their own stories based on illustrations.

Read and analyze the book, The Teacher From the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler with your class. They will compare/contrast the two Mrs. Greens with a Venn diagram, design a new book cover, create a paper mache mask, and complete a story...

Explore how illustrations add to a story. Young learners will look at picture books to see how the pictures tell the story. They create illustrations to go with a chosen story, and then flip the activity so they have to write a story to...

Explore the concepts of community and point of view with these activities complementing the children's book Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. Following a class reading of the story, ask students to either draw a map of the...

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.

Inspire first grade artists to learn about abstract and realistic art while reading Eric Carle's Where are you Going? To See My Friend. Young artists design and make a mural collage by tearing shapes of paper while comparing English and...

Aesop's Fables are the focus of this language arts lesson. Young philosophers study and discuss the morals found in the most famous of Aesop's Fables. They write an original fable that teaches a common moral. A "Fable Listening Library"...

Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...

Through an exploration of Chato's Kitchen by Gary Soto, learners practice sequencing skills, retelling a story, and Spanish vocabulary words. All of the necessary resources, worksheets, and other materials are provided in order to give...

This game is a combination of tag and the rock, paper, scissors game. Giants beat elves, elves beat wizards, and wizards beat giants. The set-up determines who becomes the taggers and who is trying to run back to safety.

While the preparation for this lesson is extensive, the results are well worth the effort. Prior to the lesson, Xerox the pictures from Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin, collect the ingredients for Cranberry Bread, and...

Imagine the surprise when small groups present their Evidence Charts to the class and discover that each group has studied a different version of the Cinderella story. Irish, Ojibwa, Egyptian, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Mexican, and...

After reading a book on their own, pupils prepare an oral report on the book,  and sit in the "Readers Report Chair" when giving the report to the class. They are taught to briefly summarize the book by talking about one of two...

Altering the ending of a famous fairy tale is a really fun way for kids to experience creative writing. The lesson here has them do just that! Learners listen to the famous fairy tale, "The Twelve Brothers," and change the ending of the...

Students examine how their feelings make them unique. They read and discuss a poem, develop a list of feelings, and create a drawing of them feeling happy and healthy.

Learners practice reading with expression, decoding and word recognition to become fluent readers. They read the book, "Not me!" Said the Monkey," by Cohn West and view drawings of a lion, snake, rhino, elephant and a monkey from the art...

By reading two books aloud, Ben and Becky in the Haunted House and The Ghost in the Classroom, youngsters learn new words and understand story events. They workin small groups to review the vocabulary in a game-like setting.