Have your older students assist young children with writing in this community service and literacy activity. Middle schoolers become partners with a local elementary school. They assist the grade school children in writing a pattern book...

An extensive portfolio project encourages your kids to reflect on their personalities with multiple writing assignments. From activities on extended metaphors to writing about an important day in their lives, kids explore the way they...

It's no secret that children can be very opinionated, but rather than fight against this natural tendency, embrace it with this primary grade writing project. After a shared reading of a children's book about...

Students solve pentomino puzzles.  For this problem solving lesson, students discuss how pentomino puzzles play into the plot of Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett and practice solving a pentomino puzzle on their own....

Teach your upper graders how to use an idea web to develop a topic for writing. After reading a variety of stories about friendship (a list of stories with the theme of friendship is included), model using an idea web. Class members...

Work on narrative writing with this lesson, in which middle schoolers analyze the characters from a selected piece of literature and write narrative diary pieces as the character. They work to understand the point of view of the...

Second graders study movements. In this dance instructional activity, 2nd graders draw patterns selecting one to represent through movement with their body.

Students conduct field research of a historical site in order to discover a more complete understanding of a time period. They choose one particular historical figure and write a short poem about the site from the historical person's...

Chopin was a lovely composer who played the piano masterfully. Third graders are introduced to Chopin, his piano sounds, triple meter, music patterns, movement, and the waltz. They listen to his music while hearing the story Butterflies...

Students explore families and culture. In this family and culture lesson, students discuss their families and their similarities and differences. Students read the book The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco and create their own quilt...

In this math lesson, young learners receive a numeral written on a paper and arrange themselves in chronological order. They illustrate skip counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's using their numerals and then complete an individual 100 chart by...

Review story elements with your class. They will use examples from a story to develop critical-thinking questions. Then they use a graphic organizer to describe the setting, character, and plot of the story, focusing on how they...

Begin writing personal narratives in this writing instructional activity. Junior high writers start by writing a journal about their favorite holiday. They read a book at their skill level and use graphic organizers to record their ideas...

Have your class conduct research to learn all they can about simple machines. They use the web, take notes from a video, write a script, then make a film describing various simple machines found in real life. These videos are then...

Shapes in art, shapes in stories, shapes in the environment, shapes all around. A multi-part lesson that includes looking at the artist Paul Klee's work, reading books about shapes, taking a walk in the neighborhood and identifying...

Your class can participate in a writing program involving four building blocks. By exploring words, sentences, writing forms, and story organization, they improve their creative writing skills throughout this year-long unit. Early in the...

Upper graders listen to the blues. They discuss blues scale, read a description of the blues, and work together to write an original piece. A lesson plan like this ties into American history and African-American musical contributions...

Students explore two- and three-dimensional shapes.  In this very busy spider lesson, students read the story and then create a spider web pattern of their own. The webs must use a symmetrical pattern.  Additional activities...

Students create a new design for an everyday object using color and patterns after observing objects that surround them in the classroom; focusing on five examples that are either solid colored or patterned.

Students distinguish various books by David Shannon from other authors, compare three of Shannon's books for similarities, list various possible settings for stories, integrate Shannon's pattern of writing into their own, and formulate...

Students create a macaroni necklace based on a pattern given them by the instructor. In this reinforcement instructional activity, students are given a complex pattern and using a letter key. They must recreate the patten using colored...

Students create pattern books. In this math patterns instructional activity, students create various patterns using manipulatives. Students take digital photographs of the patterns and create books.

The students create patterns and repeat colors for unity. They explore organic shapes and demonstrate awareness of design principles and art elements. They then create 3-D paper relief from a 2-D surface and demonstrate the difference...

Students utilize skittles and unifix cubes to practice the recognition and creation of a variety of patterns. The created patterns are copied onto sheets and the colors are labeled.