Curated OER
Pay It Forward Project
Create a list of random acts of kindness and have your class perform them during a designated week. Learners will also participate in a project centered around being kind to others. Each grade chooses their kindness project, and then...
Achieve3000
Figurative Language
Similes and metaphors make writing more beautiful and detailed, but can be a little harder to decipher during a first reading. Use a passage from The Man Who Loved Words to show young readers how to think through passages that contain...
Curated OER
Language Arts Writing Project
Students practice writing open-ended questions about a specific topic. They use proper grammar and syntax in their questions that are typed into a word processing file. A rubric is included in this lesson plan to help with assessment.
Curated OER
Creating a Newspaper
Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...
Curated OER
Winter Wonderland: Internet Literature Project
Students, using the Internet, communicate with peers around the world about winter-themed books. They study authors, write book reviews, re-write endings, interview book characters, create scene dioramas, paint murals, and write...
Curated OER
Art Critic for a Day!
Middle schoolers practice evaluating art by creating a research project and presentation. They use the Internet and library to discover a piece of art or artist whom they feel has an impact on the world of art. Next, they create a...
Curated OER
Reading and Writing Skills Activities
A straightforward and thorough packet of reading exercises would be a solid addition to any reading unit. With worksheets that address various writing and reading skills, including word roots, narrative writing, evaluating text, and...
Curated OER
Teaching "A Week in the Woods"
The book, A Week in the Woods is the focus of the very interesting language arts lesson presented here. After the book has been read, learners engage in study of certain parts of the book in order to gain a better understanding of how...
Curated OER
School News
Compile a school newsletter with your budding journalists! Use the school calendar to assign each learner a specific even to cover! Possible events include the science fair, sports games, concerts, talent shows, etc. This is a project...
Scholastic
Smart Quotes Mini-Lesson
Prepare for an interview project with a set of worksheets about asking questions and quoting people. After completing a grammar exercise about quotation marks, kids write out the questions they want to ask their interviewee, and record...
Lied Center of Kansas
The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare
Both The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare are great additions to an elementary language arts lesson. Young readers focus on the literary elements of each story, including characters and plot development, and apply counting and...
Curated OER
Welcome To Middle School Video
Students create questions to pose to adults working in Middle School. In groups, students create a video interviewing the Middle School staff. They edit the video and format present it as an introduction to Middle School for perspective...
McGraw Hill
Writing Prompts, Student Rubrics, and Sample Responses
Whether you are teaching mainstream, advanced, or intervention language arts classes, you will find something helpful in a thorough writing packet. It includes prompts, rubrics, responses, helpful hints, graphic organizers, and many...
Curated OER
Vocabulary Building Through Visualization of Word Meanings to Create Digital Art
Use online dictionaries to define vocabulary words and create a visualization of word meanings through digital art. Middle schoolers go online to define assigned vocabulary words. They visualize the meanings of the words in photo...
Curated OER
Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger Chapters 7 - 9
In this comprehension learning exercise, students read chapters 7 - 9 of Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger and complete multiple choice questions. Students complete 14 questions.
Curated OER
Using the Internet - Art and Design
An interesting resource that might work best in an upper level art course, this handout provides a list of nine websites where young artists can read and study about all forms of art. These online resources range from a dictionary of...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Twinning At-Risk Students
Students at-risk in high school and primary grades pair up to read and write together. They create books modeled after authors and illustrators. They hold a parents' day to display their completed books.
Curated OER
Kumeyaay Indians
Useful for literary analysis, citing textual evidence, or summary skills, this instructional activity about the Kumeyaay Indians would be a good addition to your language arts class. Middle schoolers read novels and summarize the...
National External Diploma Program Council
Comma Review One
Commas are helpful for separating names of cities from states, setting off interjections, and listing items in a series. Practice the many uses of commas with a set of grammar exercises designed for both elementary and middle school...
All for KIDZ
Building Relationships: The Orphan of Ellis Island
Family and friendship are two very important themes of the historical fiction novel The Orphan of Ellis Island by Elvira Woodruff. From video clips and writing prompts to reader's theater and family interviews, this resource provides...
Curated OER
Character Builder
Characters in a story are more than a name to remember. Use a character builder worksheet to write out a character's appearance, background, personality, attributes, and story relevance, including whether they are a main or minor...
Curated OER
Public Speaking and Persuasion - Improve Your School!
Present vital information and persuade your audience. The class views and discusses two video segments regarding a Chinese school government election. They prepare and deliver persuasive speeches that require them to describe how they...
Curated OER
Graffiti Project
Students inspect performing arts by participating in a class presentation. For this art collage lesson, students examine the graffiti art created on New York subways and discuss the life of Keith Haring. Students create their own images...
Fluence Learning
Writing Informative Text: Did Shakespeare Write Shakespeare?
William Shakespeare penned some of the richest and most fascinating works of literature—or did he? Middle schoolers read three brief informative passages and conduct additional research to evaluate the claim that Shakespeare did not...