Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Voyagers: Challenge Activities (Theme 5)
Young voyagers face the challenge of the wide dark sea, travel with Yunmi and Halmoni, and even get trapped by the ice as they explore the reading selections offered in these enrichment activities designed for the Houghton Mifflin...
Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
Using Our Senses to Observe
Look around and explore. Little ones use their five senses with some day-to-day activities designed to guide observation and apply STEM strategies. Young scientists learn through comparing/contrasting and observing with magnifiers as...
Curated OER
Speak: Questioning Strategy - ReQuest Strategy
The best way to analyze a piece of literature is to ask questions about the characters, plot, and theme. Encourage your learners to stump the teacher with the most difficult questions they can create using Bloom's Taxonomy and various...
Museum of Disability
The Right Dog for the Job
Here, dog lovers can enjoy an educational lesson about the ways puppies are trained to become service and guide dogs. Based on The Right Dog for the Job by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, the lesson provides discussion questions for learners...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
That’s Amazing!: English Language Development Lessons (Theme 3)
That's Amazing! is the theme of an English language development unit created by Houghton Mifflin. Following a speak, look, move, and listen routine, scholars delve into topics; seasons, weather, animals, landforms, telling time,...
Curated OER
Sense, Sensibility and Sentences: Examining and Writing Memorable Lines
Involve your readers in finding works of literary genius. Have each individual write down compelling sentences that they read or hear, whether in a newspaper, advertisement, book, movie, song, or any other place! Once each person has a...
Curated OER
Long Vowels
Now here is a great set of activities that will make learning about long vowel sounds a snap. The activities cover two days and include vowel identification, reading, and several great games. Kids will hunt for long vowel words, play...
Curated OER
Map It Out
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...
Curated OER
Fractured Fairy Tales
Through reading and writing, learners explore common elements found in fairy tales. After discussing traditional fairy tales, class members listen to The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by John Scieszka, a hilarious retelling of the...
Rainforest Alliance
Sounds of the Rainforest
Do you hear what I hear? Encourage scholars to use their listening skills and participate in a series of activities that demonstrate how the sense of hearing is crucial to the human and animal world. Activities guide learners on nature...
Curated OER
Drive the Data Derby
Three days of race car design and driving through the classroom while guessing probability could be a third graders dream. Learn to record car speed, distances traveled, and statistics by using calculation ranges using the mean, median,...
Curated OER
Family Pictures (Cuadros de Familia)
Designed to be spread across multiple days, this mini-unit gives learners an opportunity to develop family related vocabulary. Start by reading selected pages from "Family Pictures-Cuadros de familia" by Carmen Lomas Garza, and then...
Learning to Give
The Beginning of the Storm
Introduce readers to Mildred Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry with a lesson that sets the context for the novel. Class members research the bigotry in Mississippi during the Great Depression and identify examples in the story of how...
ESL Kid Stuff
Christmas Lesson 1
Little ones sing Christmas carols, complete craft projects, and play word games while learning new vocabulary in part one of two-part ESL activity series.
Curated OER
Find Your Style
Students read a story and demonstrate their fluency and comprehension by retelling it to a partner. In this reading lesson plan, students follow a note taking sheet provided.
Gwinnett County Public Schools
Analysis of the Tuck Everlasting and The Birchbark House Text Exemplars
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...
Curated OER
Frankenstein Anticipation Guide
Before your high schoolers embark on the journey of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, provide them with this prereading activity. Independently, they respond to seven statements that connect with the novel. For example, they must decide if...
Curated OER
Developing a Central Idea in Narrative Writing
At the beginning of the lesson, the class discusses the central idea of a poem. After that, the teacher reads a poem, embedded in the plan, to the class. In groups of two or three, learners create their own poem in response to the...
Curated OER
Keywords: A Memorization Strategy
Here is a fabulous, five-page lesson plan on how keywords can help a reader with his/her reading comprehension. After a teacher-led discussion, pupils pair off with each other and work together to identify the main idea in a passage of...
Curated OER
Hoot: List-Group-Label
Word association is a great way to explore vocabulary and new ideas. In a unit about Carl Hiassen's Hoot, kids think about the word environmentalist and come up with additional words that they associate with environmentalism on sticky...
Curated OER
People are People
Explore human diversity in this human rights lesson. Middle schoolers compare novels, speeches, videos, and short stories that promote diversity and basic human rights. They complete daily coursework as they read the selected literature...
Curated OER
Walk Two Moons: Hook and Concept of a Frame Story
As an introduction to Sharon Creexh's Walk Two Moons, a volunteer dons a pair of boots and walks about the classroom.Observers then ponder the axiom, Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins. Their collaborative...
Curated OER
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: K-W-H-L Strategy
Ah, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer! Before your class reads this classic novel, encourage them to activate prior knowledge and build interest in the book with the KWHL strategy. Directions for walking your class through this strategy are...
Curated OER
Nonfiction Genre Mini-Unit: Persuasive Writing
Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.