Shed light on what antonyms, synonyms, and homophones are. In this lesson, upper elementary schoolers create pairs using an antonym, a homophone, and/or a synonym. Then they play an antonym matching game.

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...

Direct instruction on punctuation rules for titles is followed by collaborative practice in class. Two worksheets with aesthetically engaging graphic design provide practice. For 12 examples, small groups either underline, italicize, or...

Fluency is crucial to reading success. This lesson provides a great technique for increasing fluency. Using Inspiration or Garage Band, learners record themselves reading a passage at their reading level and repeat the process to monitor...

"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...

Analyze characters and stories to identify stereotyping. Learners will examine the concept of character gender to evaluate bias in classroom story books. They are asked to read a story or play and change the gender of the character to...

Pairs use desktop publishing software, as well as digital video and camera equipment, to craft a book review. These reviews are then shared with others in the school community through the class or school website.

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...

Use Aaron Copland's symphonic piece, "Lincoln Portrait" to engage learners in a cross-curricular experience. They'll listen to the piece, watch a video, read the Gettysburg Address, and write a series of fact or opinion sentences. An...

Young scholars dig through dictionaries to uncover the wealth of information they provide. Using the included graphic organizer, children learn about target words by finding their parts of speech, pronunciation, definition, synonyms, and...

Why does an author write an informative article? Learners examine passages of a short reading on Spain and determine what the author wanted to inform the reader about.

Using correct grammar is a capital idea! Elementary readers review the rules of capitalization, including proper nouns, abbreviations of organizations, and holidays, before correcting the errors in two sets of sentences.  

What are you doing today? What have you done this week? What will you be doing next month? Focus on verb usage with a series of fill-in-the-black exercises on basic tenses, inappropriate shifts in tense, and active and passive voice.

An activity work alongside a narrative text of your choice. With reading comprehension at its focus, readers complete worksheets covering character descriptions.

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...

Middle schoolers work on summarizing a story, and they determine if it is a legend, a myth, or a fable. Working in groups to read and summarize stories, they then list evidence whether the tale is a myth, fable, or...

Challenge scholars to identify and use heteronyms in a sentence with a two-page worksheet designed to boost grammar skills. 

When choosing what foods to eat, there are a lot of factors to consider. To help make the decision a little easier, young learners work in small groups developing short plays, stories, or advertisements that address the different issues...

Even though this is technically an art lesson, haiku poetry is actually the main focus! Learners view photographs of Japanese tea caddies. They list five descriptive words for the caddies, then write haiku poems using the caddies as...

Strengthen your high schoolers' writing with a series of steps for writing successfully. With sections on organizing an essay, choosing a topic, crafting a thesis statement, and revising a draft, the lesson encourages your class to...

Partners choose, research, and analyze fictional or historical characters and design character life boxes to represent them. They also compose a rhyme royal, which they understand inductively by deconstructing examples. Based largely on...

The first of a three-part series on bullying, this plan has class members present skits about bullying, write and sign an anti-bullying pledge, and complete a service project. For the skit, learners use information from previous lessons...

Here is a great way to bring core content to your special education classroom. Included is a set of instructional ideas intended to help learners increase their verbal and written expression through storytelling. Tape recorders, story...

Teach your young readers how to summarize a text using a strategy called Somebody Wanted But So. Kids identify the character (Somebody), the motivation (Wanted), the conflict (But), and the resolution (So). The resource comes with...