In order to understand figurative language, learners read 5 poems, each exemplifying a different literary device. They discuss and write responses to each poem. They then choose one literary device which they will use as the basis...

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...

First graders demonstrate various ways to represent and verify a whole or set separated in two, three, or four equal parts. Using interlocking cubes, Students model a part of a whole or a part of a set. They use appropriate tools and...

In this language arts lesson, 8th graders verify the meaning of a word in its context, even when its meaning is not directly stated. After a class discussion on how to use context clues, students pairs are given a worksheet of "mystery...

Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...

A three-week unit designed to be completed in an elementary level, dual-language immersion classroom, this resource includes several lessons intended to introduce young learners to the solar system, the Earth and how the Earth compares...

Things usually don't happen without a reason; usually any event has a cause that got the ball rolling. The book, If You Give a Mouse a Muffin is used to help learners understand the concept of causes in literature. Examples from the...

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...

Your learners will take key economic concepts, such as identifying needs versus wants and the four factors of production, and design a video to explain their topic choice to the class. Rather than have one person in charge of dispensing...

Readers practice character analysis by reviewing Gary Soto's short story "La Bamba" with the whole class (anything you've read together will work). They design t-shirts that feature traits and story elements to reveal the nature of a...

Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...

Have your class explore the art of storytelling through this lesson on fairy tales and folktales. Learners interact with a variety of fairy tales and folktales. They practice telling stories out loud as well as writing their own. This...

After a whole-class discussion of water reservoirs, ten liters of water are given to each lab group to represent Earth's total amount of water. They divide the water into smaller containers, each representing one of those reservoirs. The...

  Students listen to books written by Mo Willems each day and discuss the story elements of each.  In this reading strategies lesson, students decide after reading through the whole series of books, what their favorite book is...

Students design a unique basket plaque incorporating at least one symbol from their chosen tribe. They also identify, share, and give rationales for the symbols in basket plaques. Whole class discussion jig-saws their discoveries.

Ninth graders explore poetic technique and figurative language in this ten instructional activity unit. Comparisons are made between a variety of forms of poetic expressions and the lives of several poets are studied.

Students, divided into two groups, are put into a new culture, where they must create their own body language for greetings, etc. They learn aspects of other cultures such as body language, discourse patterns, male and female roles.

Students use Lewis and Clark's journals to identify the forms of non-verbal communication they used. They discover the problems they faced on their journey and how they overcame them. They practice using the non-verbal language of the...

Introduce the concept of myths to your class. Using the link to "Myths Around the World," read a story aloud and have learners list characteristics of a myth. Readers then choose their own myths from the site and work in groups to answer...

The options are vast with this Ancient Greece and Olympics research project! Using Scholastic online resources, historians have interactive and educational supports to guide them through researching and writing about the 2004 Olympics in...

Third graders select characters from books they have read to create character maps. After drawing the maps, they add the characteristics around a sketch of their chosen character. In groups, 3rd graders who have read the same book,...

Students create a computer slide show of pictures representing directional words. After listening to several books with examples, they pair words such as inside and outside, below and above, or high and low. With older students or...

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...

Explore appositives, phrases that immediately follow the noun they modify, using sentence strips, examples, and collaborative learning. The class works together to identify appositives and use commas to properly punctuate them. Partners...