What do Jeep advertisements and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have in common? They both employ the art of the extended metaphor! Using the Six-Trait Writing model, learners begin to work on their own extended metaphors. Development...

What is on your pupils' "Bucket Lists" - the list of things they want to do before they die? Their choices of activities for this list could be very revealing, and is a great source of inspiration for a personal poem. The lesson prompts...

Reading is reading, whether it's for drama or English class. Boost reading fluency, accuracy, intonation, and comprehension while fostering creative acting skills. Kids read the provided tale of "The Lion and the Mouse" several times in...

Elementary and middle schoolers research animal facts and use them in a fable. First, they pair-share to find animal traits to use in writing a fable. They then complete a prewriting worksheet. After going through the writing process,...

Read high frequency words and rearrange scrambled sentences in order to make proper sentences with pupils. They will also practice oral fluency by reading a word assigned to them. These activities reinforce reading fluency and vocabulary...

A great way to bring poetry and parody into your language arts classroom, this lesson plan mimics famous poems based on Jon Scieszka's Science Verse. The activity not only allows the class to see examples of poem parodies, but to create...

Second graders interact with the story of Alexander's horrible day by connecting it to their lives. They practice predicting, writing paragraphs, reading aloud, discussing his problems, making a card to cheer him up, and designing a pair...

First graders make an "All About Me" book. In this high fluency words lesson plan students use a computer program to create a book about themselves. Students write their own text.

Conduct a Reader's Theater. Third, fourth, and fifth graders rewrite books with a baseball theme to a Reader's Theater format. They form groups of four or five, practice reading the script, and then perform it for an audience.

Build vocabulary, fluency and confidence in your French speakers by having them participate in some of these engaging activities. Several suggestions are given, but you will have to design the actual lesson yourself.

Useful in an Of Mice and Men unit, or in a unit that focuses on descriptive writing, this lesson prompts young authors to impersonate John Steinbeck's writing style in the opening passages of the novel. A Six Trait writing activity...

The fifth installment in a writing unit that culminates with a Hyperstudio illustrated group story project, this plan is ripe with ideas for ways to design group writing projects for elementary writers. Use the whole unit as a base from...

Students creatively utilize a word processor in order to do daily journal writing. They explore with using simple, compound, and complex sentences in order to present ideas with clarity and precision. They gain computer skills while...

Develop fluency with a variety of works. Help kindergartners use multiple strategies to understand text and decoding. They will create an alphabet poem book on Kid Works 2 to illustrate and write their own poem. In the end, they will...

Vamos a escribir! Your older learners will love writing a children's book for learners at the elementary level. The resource suggests having small groups write their stories and create PowerPoint slides with illustrations, but this can...

Students write on a variety of topics, maximize creative and expository writing skills, develop focused writing, organize ideas, incorporate detail in writing, and exhibit varied and precise word choice.

Second graders will write a story. In this writing and meteorology lesson, 2nd graders read the story Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, then use KidPix to create a weather picture. The picture is imported into a word processor and the...

Students improve their creative writing skills. In this writing skills lesson, students learn about picture captions, story writing, critiques, poems, reports, letter writing, creative writing, and a rap poem.

Second graders collect data from their families about their reading habits and graph them. In this graphing family reading habits lesson, 2nd graders interview family members about their reading habits. They then use a graphing computer...

Young scholars complete pre reading, writing, during reading, and interdisciplinary activities for the book Fishing Fun. In this reading lesson plan, students complete journal entries, go over vocabulary, answer short answer questions,...

Develop a world-wide, email chain on which class members can showcase their acts of kindness. After defining the meaning of random acts of kindness through discussion and through a reading of Random Acts of Kindness,...

Fourth graders read chapter 4 of The Secret School and answer discussion questions as they read. In this reading lesson plan, 4th graders also write a summary of what they read.

Collaborate to create a visual version of a poem using video. Before class, choose a poem to pick apart. Read it aloud and then analyze it in detail as a class. Assign a line or short section to each student to expand upon using a...

Students explore Greek Mythology. In this Greek Mythology unit, students read myths, pantomime vocabulary words, practice research skills, create city-states, and demonstrate knowledge of ratios and proportions. This unit includes many...