Take poetry off the page and put it into terms of movement, physical space and, finally, music with this series of three lessons from the Smithsonian Institution. This resource introduces students to two poetic forms that originated as...

Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...

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...

Explore poetry, personification, and multiple languages with a poetry reading and writing lesson. After the teacher reads the poem to the class, a discussion about personification follows. The class then writes a collaborative poem...

Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...

Guide your readers to explore character traits. As a class, discuss and record the traits of a commonly-known fairy tale character. Then do the same with the main character in the class novel. Finally, have learners use magazines...

Differentiate instruction with this crafty approach to demonstrating comprehension. Learners choose a fictional book at their reading level, and afterward create a quilt square. The square is "decorated" with words, illustrations, and...

Practice expository and creative writing with your class. Pupils use magazines to find pictures, cut them out, and create a collage. This work of art is then used as a writing prompt. They describe the collage in either a creative or...

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...

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," is a popular phrase in our society. The lesson plan here puts the phrase to the test as pupils explore what truly is beautiful through a study of some Japanese folk art. A careful examination of...

Historical fiction can be a valuable asset when learning about the past. Integrate several novels written about the Civil War into your social studies unit, with groups of four working collaboratively to comprehend the novel from...

Books open up the world. Four main characters in The Library Card discover the amazing things that happen at a library. Scholars complete sentences with 10 new vocabulary words, create similes and alliterations, and give a prediction for...

Students explore the language of Shakespeare. In this literature lesson plan, students examine words invented by Shakespeare as they interpret their meanings in drawings. Students pantomime the meanings and then write a short story...

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...

The library is such a valuable resource for kids of all ages. Help elementary readers learn all about parts of the library, text features for both fiction and nonfiction text, and different ways to find books that they want to read.

Students design colorful posters to "get out and vote" after studying the three amendments to the US Constitution that extend voting rights. They analyze the importance of voting to a healthy democracy.

This resource on personification provides three different approaches aimed at different levels. The first, appropriate for upper elementary, provides examples of personification, followed by an exercise that requires replacing a word in...

He was running or he has been running? Young grammarians must examine context clues to determine which verb phrase to use in ten sentences. 

When do you use fewer, and when do you use less? Learn the difference between the two words with a fill-in-the-blank worksheet that asks readers to make their choice based on the context clues in the ten sentences.

Aesop’s Fables offer young learners an opportunity to study figurative language. After reviewing theme, simile, alliteration, and metaphor, model for your pupils how to identify examples of these devices in the fable. Class members then...

Books for kids, chosen by kids! What could be better? This packet is made up of book lists, each with approximately 30 books included, organized by age group. Kids will enjoy the summer reading materials they choose from this...

Who purloined the poodle? Class groups read police reports and theorize whodunnit. The sixth of a ten-lesson series on mysteries.

Present the class with a slide show that will give them a great head start in writing expository and narrative texts. The information is highlighted for easy note taking, well organized, and presented in a kid-friendly manner. It...

Help learners find the most important information in a text with a lesson on summarizing. As kids read through a passage about Johannes Gutenberg, they summarize small excerpts, put events in sequential order, and respond to two longer...