What is and what will be the role of newspapers in the future? Keeping this essential question in mind, class members use print, electronic, and/or web editions of newspapers, to investigate topics that include financial...

Listen, or read, to a first-hand account of how 15-year old Adama survived being bullied. Scholars gain insight into Adama's experience while reinforcing reading comprehension and vocabulary skills using context clues.   

Why did Henry Ford want to invent a car for the masses? Why did Henry Ford locate his factory in Detroit? Why did Henry Ford encourage the idea of a 5-day work week? Young innovators find the answers to these and other question in a unit...

The most famous climbers of Mount Everest could never have made it to the summit without the assistance of the local Sherpa. Christine Taylor-Butler's nonfiction children's book Sacred Mountain: Everest is the focus of an extensive...

After reading "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," scholars discuss the emotions the events provoked in its characters. In pairs, writers compose a letter depending on the topic and style of their choice then reply to their own or a peer's...

Scholars take a popular song or nursery rhyme and make it their own as they write a fractured nursery rhyme. Writers seek out a nursery rhyme's rhyming words and change them to create an original poem.  

Students read several fairy tales of Russian origin. They brainstorm common elements of a fairy tale and identify those elements in several examples. They retell a favorite fairy tale through a skit, oral storytelling, a sketch, or a...

Students consider toys as more than items for playing, compare and contrast inventors and toys they created, and discuss purpose of specific toys, including whether toy was created for education, financial success, or both.

Students read one of the following books: Minn of the Mississippi, Paddle-to-the-Sea, or Seabird, all by Holling C. Holling, and identify the five themes of geography as well as make a literature journal with chapter field notes. They...

Youngsters identify and interpret the importance of having rules in order to maintain order at home, at school, in their community, and in the United States. They create a working Classroom Constitution that governs the classroom and...

Create a commercial for a favorite book and broadcast this pitch on the Sly Book Channel! Learners practice retelling, summarizing, comparing/contrasting, and evaluation skills as they prepare their scripts. The approved scripts are then...

Study unusual punctuation marks in this punctuation lesson. Young grammarians work in small groups to research one of the unusual punctuation marks (semi-colon, colon, dash, comma, ellipses, or quotation marks) and discuss how the mark...

After viewing this slide show, which goes over the mosts common reasons for misspellings, students take a short quiz. They must choose the correct version of the underlined word in each sentence, or choose option D; which means "no...

Creative writing allows your students to explore their imagination and connect to literature in a personal way. This presentation will help you discuss what a good writing lead, or attention grabber is. Included are a list of lead types...

As part of an lesson involving literature or writing, have your learners watch and discuss this presentation on plot development. In a series of slides, viewers engage in an activity to explore dramatic structure, including plot...

Folklore is composed of stories that convey cultural heritage and traditions. Many types of tales are listed as well as what they portray in various contexts and situations. Give your learners a brief description or definition of...

Who would have thought to explore the concept of race through children's literature?  After reading Bell Hooks' picture book, Skin Again, and chapter sixteen of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee, class members...

Get to know your scholars with this in-depth survey that asks learners to rate, answer true or false, write short answers, and draw abstract visuals about their academic and personal preferences.

Does your class or do individual learners need more practice determining the main idea of a passage of informational text? Here is a instructional activity containing seven exercises that asks kids to read short paragraphs, summarize the...

What just happened in the street? After several introductory activities about adjectives and description, pupils use all that they have learned to compose a paragraph about a hectic intersection.

If you could have any one superhero ability, what would it be? Your charges will love this classic writing prompt, which can be supplemented with an array of follow-up writing or discussion activities.

Our town is a very, very fine town. Kids craft a short paragraph about their town, its size, location, interesting features, and climate. The template even provides room for pictures or illustrations.

Practice any vocabulary list of up to 20 words with this graphic organizer. Class members write down the words, their definitions, and sentences that use the words.

Keep track of what happens before and after an event, moment in a story, and so on, with a clear graphic organizer. Learners can note down four things that happen before and four that happen after on this chart.