Finished your novel? What’s next? Designing the book cover, of course. But how to begin? After examining the covers of published books and noting the common elements of these jackets, young novelists design a front and back cover for...

Closed syllable words contain short vowel sounds. A phonics lessons introduces readers to consonant-vowel-consonant words. Guided instruction introduces the words with a series of dictation activities, and then learners practice reading...

Plan a Parts of a Book scavenger hunt. Begin by giving your young adventurers a book, and asking them to find the title, author, illustrator, and table of contents. After a discussion of the purpose of each of these items, class members...

How do different communities celebrate special occasions? After researching celebrations in their countries, class members investigate other festivals like those associated with Ramadan, Diwali, Chinese New Year, Halloween, Easter,...

Explore how illustrations add to a story. Young learners will look at picture books to see how the pictures tell the story. They create illustrations to go with a chosen story, and then flip the activity so they have to write a story to...

They always say to write what you know. This approach is used to get middle schoolers prepared to write novels of their own. Using a favorite book as a model, potential novelists respond to prompts that ask about characters, plot, main...

What will happen next? Leave readers at a cliffhanger as they practice prediction strategies while listening to a story. Pupils start by making guesses based on the book's cover and title, discussing the techniques they use to make these...

Get your class up and moving as they explore how to express movement and dance through words. Designed around two poems by Lillian Morrison about break dancing, the activity truly captures the creative and multi-sensory aspects of...

Did you know that November is Novel Writing Month? In the first of a series of lessons, class members are introduced to the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) project.