Curated OER
You Can Count on Spelling
Here is a cross-curricular activity that is suitable for virtually any grade level! Learners calculate the mathematical value of their spelling words using the letter tiles from a Scrabble game and identify the spelling word with the...
Perkins School for the Blind
Hat Game
Sometimes the simplest ideas foster a lot of different skills. To boost social skills, group participation, identifying others by name, and dressing skills, learners play the hat game. They take turns wearing a hat while singing a song...
Curated OER
Scrabble Fitness
Hop, skip, and jump your way to picking up letters for a word spelling scrabble game. Get a little aerobic conditioning in while having fun with words. Keep the game simple for the younger learners. You might try putting the letters face...
Curated OER
Constructing Contractions
Young writers participate in a game to practice making contractions and using the apostrophe properly.
Curated OER
Scrambled Sentences
Here's a clever classroom game that will help learners with their sentence writing skills. It's a fast-paced game that is played in groups. Each makes up scrambled sentences that the other groups must solve. There are plenty of examples...
Curated OER
Spelling Relay
Looking for a way to review and practice spelling words that's fun and creative? Use this spelling relay activity for any grade level. Using three spelling lists, ranging in difficulty, teams of young spellers choose words from the lists...
Curated OER
Context Skills
Here is a fine lesson on teaching ways to use context clues. Upper graders split up into groups and use sticky notes to cover up five words in a passage of text. The passages are rotated to the other groups, and learners must use their...
Curated OER
What's the Weather Like? Primary Level
Elementary schoolers and language learners will shine with a series of games and activities that feature weather words. The exercises can be adapted for pairs, small groups, or whole class participation.
Curated OER
Pendemonium: The Great African Surfari
Young scholars discover the importance of matching verbs to their subjects through a discussion of a whimsical video on verb agreement and a read aloud of the book, "To Root, To Toot To Parachute". They practice verb agreement in...
Curated OER
A Speeding Rocket, a Shooting Star... It's a Racing Reader!
Prepare a gameboard and die-cut race cars to play a fun fluency game. Also create several flash cards to review the long /i/ sound. Then, model reading smoothly and with expression, emphasizing the importance of re-reading texts to...
ESL Kid Stuff
Time Frequency - "How Often ...?"
How often do you ride a bike? Time frequency words are featured in a lesson designed for ESL/ELD classrooms.
ESL Kid Stuff
Past Tense Activities - Irregular Verbs
"What did you do yesterday?" Language learners engage in carefully scaffolded activities that review past tense regular verbs, that introduce new vocabulary words, and that permit practice of using the past tense of irregular verbs.
Curated OER
My Spelling Dictionary
Develop study skills and improve spelling at the same time. Every time I teach this mnemonic device, the kids thank me. It makes memorizing more manageable, and fun. To remember how to spell difficult words, make up a sentence using the...
Curated OER
Alliteration
Students recognize, identify and produce words that begin with the /sp/ sound. They decorate objects that have the /sp/ sound with items that have the /sp/ sound. Students create phrases with the /sp/ sound that describe the object...
Curated OER
ABC Grammar Book
Elementary learners create an ABC grammar book. The project begins with class members taking digital pictures of items that begin with each letter of the alphabet. Depending on level, they then add a word or a complete sentence to...
Curated OER
Learning About Fiction Genres in the Elementary School Library
Teaching about fiction genres can be challenging. The lesson here, designed for library media specialists, offers a fun way to do it. In the lesson, learners visit the library and learn about the different types of fiction through book...
Curated OER
What's Proper?
Learners practice using capital letters for proper nouns and adjectives. They play a matching game with word cards and correct paragraphs with incorrect capitalization, and edit their work with a partner.
Curated OER
Round-Robin Reading Quiz
Small groups of learners read text round-robin style, and then work individually to answer three questions based on the text. Next, they share their questions and responses and add ideas from the group. The reading strategies detailed...
Curated OER
Phonics Instruction: Long Vowel Sound, Silent E
Students explore language arts by participating in a class word identification game. In this phonics lesson, students read several words in class and identify the different sounds between short and long vowel words. Students complete a...
Curated OER
Dictionaries
Students understand the way the dictionary is laid out as well as the purpose for why people use dictionaries. In this language arts lesson, students recognize the need for alphabetical order and are able to find words using a...
Curated OER
Guess Again!
Students define and read riddles, and differentiate between poems and riddles. They complete a class Venn Diagram comparing poems and riddles, and play an attribute guessing game with the teacher. Students then identify the rhyming words...
Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, University of Texas at Austin
Lesson 1 - Short Vowels
Apple, Adam, and At all have something in common. What is it? They all start with the short A sound. The first lesson plan of set in the Word Recognition and Fluency series introduces readers to short vowel sounds with a series of...
Curated OER
The History of Scrabble
Students discover the history and rules to the classic board game, Scrabble. In this spelling lesson, students complete a KWL chart on Scrabble and present their findings in an oral report. Students work in pairs to reenact one of the...
Curated OER
Pronouns
Students play a game. In this pronouns lesson, students watch a video and read a book about pronouns. Students review types of pronouns, fill in missing pronouns in sentences, read a newspaper article and find as many pronouns as...