Add many seconds of beauty to your class with a short film and related project. The resource centers around a competition based on one-second segments of film, and the final compilation that came from the contest. Pupils identify...

Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...

Model for emergent readers how to write a story by interpreting picture clues. For guided practice a second book is used, and then pupils work independently or with an adult to write their own stories based on illustrations.

Explore the elements of newspaper from the view of the front page. Young analysts create a front page of a newspaper geared toward teen readers. They use their inference skills to determine why some front pages are more eye-catching than...

  Did you know that 50% of all Americans can trace a relative who traveled through Ellis Island? Relive these journeys with your class and then provide sentence strategy templates for them to use to compose their own informative...

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...

Through a series of activities, learners are exposed to how artists use symbolic imagery to create the narrative of a subject’s life. They study The Birth of Alexander and some manuscripts kept at J. Paul Getty Museum. They then draft...

Students write their own folktales based on "Cathal O'Cruachan and the Cowherd." In discussions they examine the animal symbolism in the story, as well as the characters, events, problems, and solution. With partners, they select...

With What Do You See at the Pond?, young readers explore pond life and practice reading strategies. Learners first make predictions and then read the simple story independently. After a second read-through with a partner, kids come...

I absolutely love this idea. Kids explore the chiaroscuro technique as they draw, then bite, then write about an apple. They discuss chiaroscuro, depth, shade, perspective, and texture. Then they draw their apples, write a descriptive...

The many activities in this resource serve to introduce second graders to the Macintosh computer and to various programs and their creative product options. They make sideshows using KidPix, practice using email with the Journey South...

If you could travel anywhere in the United States, where would you go? Use this question to interest your fourth, fifth, and sixth graders as they experiment with Mapquest or other direction-based resources. They choose where they'd like...

A great way to connect social studies with language arts, a resource on Mary Henry's historical diary reinforces the concepts of primary and secondary sources. It comes with an easy-to-understand lesson plan, as well as the reference...

Learn about the characters of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting with a character biopoem. Readers fill in a poem format to detail the character traits of Winnie, Jesse, Miles, and Mae, and share their finished poems...

The world is a big place—discover it! A series of challenge activities designed to accompany Theme 4: Person to Person encourages learners to explore the world around them. Project-based activities promote research and writing skills in...

Art and literature can go hand in hand, they both are used to express elements of the self in a creative and interesting way. Budding story tellers interpret and analyze the narrative elements they find in a work of art. They focus on...

The classroom becomes a safe and inclusive place for your ELLs as they create documents about their lives. Learners create, read, and present story books based on their own personal experiences. They use digital cameras to take...

Combine the study of poetry and non-fiction texts with this complete and ready-to-use six-week unit. After reading numerous poems from local writers and compiling a personal anthology, high schoolers find and read a memoir or biography...

Do you remember the days when a cup of coffee cost five cents? At A.W. Dennett restaurant in 1894, you could buy a five-cent cup of coffee and as well as a five-cent slice of pie to accompany it. The menu from that year is a primary...

Improve your youngsters' descriptive writing. They study an object and write about what they see as a warm-up, then they read an excerpt from Paul Guest's memoir, One More Theory about Happiness. The next part of the...

Explore narrative writing by participating in a role-playing activity. In this perspective lesson, learners define first and third person in writing and discuss how it changes the mood of the reader. The first activity has pupils write...

Second graders create a reading, vocabulary,picture dictionary on the computer. They participate in becoming familiar with some basic capabilities of a word processor. They build vocabulary, spelling, and dictionary skills, reinforce...

Explore how language is used for comic effect. Middle schoolers determine which of the three formulas for jokes (double meanings, unexpected outcome, humorous mental image) make each of 18 classic, corny examples funny. They complete a...

Students create a multimedia presentation about their favorite things.  In this multimedia lesson, students create a multimedia presentation and add transitions, a table of contents with bullets, slides with pictures and animations...