How can you create an "English-free" classroom for your foreign language learners? This year, use some of these strategies to maximize your learners' opportunity to communicate in the language.

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...

Early learners explore shapes using colored blocks. They first get some hands-on time with the blocks and then look at beginning math concepts regarding spatial relationships. They work with a partner to build a 6-8 block tower...

Would your ideal science lab be filled with bubbling beakers and zapping Tesla coils? Or would it contain state-of-the-art computer technology and data analysis? Dream big with an innovative lesson that connects math and language...

Pupils read speeches and identify the main idea as well as the literary techniques employed, paying careful attention to the persuasion and repetition elements that each speech possesses. Using a graphic organizer, they analyze,...

Learners develop pamphlets for a dental health mentoring program that educates younger students about caring for their teeth. They recall experiences at visits to dentists and consider why some students may have poor dental health.

Students use distances on a map to draw a route, give directions, and follow directions. In this map lesson plan, students explain their route and directions orally.

Students create and perform Corridos which are oral tradition ballads. In this Passing Down Family History Through Oral Tradition lesson, students interview family members using a predetermined list of questions. In addition, students...

Students identify the stereotypes they are faced with on a daily basis. In groups, they use this information to identify the ways stereotypes are portrayed in movies and television. They use a video camera to record oral histories of...

Explore a 1900s lunch pail. In this oral language and 1900s history instructional activity, students view a photograph of an old-fashioned lunch pail. Students describe the object and make predictions about what it is and its possible...

Young learners need practice speaking comfortably in front of others. Post a list of oral speaking tips on the board during this unit. Over a week-long period, they create a story from their interview sheet and present it to the class....

Students display themselves using a small box decorated inside and out. They describe themselves on the outside of the box and describe how others see them on the inside. They share the boxes in an oral presentations.

Women's voices are becoming more prominent in the world of literature, but for centuries, this wasn't the case. Young historians research a woman whose writings are considered to be lost, out of print, or forgotten. They develop an oral...

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...

An engaging biography of "Hoosier" poet James Whitcomb Riley serves as a springboard for study of his unique dialect-based verse. Several activities illuminate differences between spoken vernacular and formal language. Learners record...

Second graders discover that oral and written communication can be improved, and made to sound more eloquent, when the following questions are addressed; Who? What? Where? When? Why? students use word processing to copy a poem using clip...

Third graders do dental flossing. In this dental care lesson plan, 3rd graders demonstrate proper dental flossing technique and describe the benefits of flossing.

Illustrate the importance of specific details and clear directions. Sitting back-to-back, partners take turns building a Lego structure and giving directions to their partners to create an identical structure. The subsequent discussion...

Writing becomes dynamic in a presentation. Presenters transform a piece of writing they have already composed about the Little Rock Nine into a presentation. The focus is transferring ideas from their writing into short prompts on cards...

Students discuss how oral interpretation varies with prose and poetry. They select a piece of prose or poetry to present to the class, and then assess each other on the organization and delivery of their speech as well as on their...

Seventh graders conduct an interview with a veteran of a recent war to provide an account of military conflicts. In this oral history lesson, 7th graders research a recent war and write interview questions for their research. Students...

Students investigate the theme of what it means to be American in a pluralistic society. They conduct oral histories with a family member and create a presentation of the interview. Students develop a better comprehension of their own...

Students create oral histories. In this oral history instructional activity, students prepare for and conduct interviews with Holocaust survivors, liberators, or rescuers. Students study the provided procedure for the interview and...

Legends are stories that have been retold as they have been passed down through the generations. Learners orally retell The Legend of the Bluebonnet in their own unique way after discussing the importance of oral traditions and...