English is not the only subject that requires its own set of vocabulary words—geography does too! A series of language development lessons designed to be used with Theme 5: One Land, Many Trails helps introduce readers to key vocabulary...

Close reading doesn't mean to literally read text close to your face, but rather to pay attention to particular details in order to develop a deep and purposeful understanding of text. The first part of a five-part resource provides an...

After several short 15-minute mini-lessons, your learners will gain an understanding of the characteristics of a non-fiction text. Using the book Map It by Elspeth Leacock, your class will become acquainted with non-fiction terms...

Over the course of three days, middle schoolers explore the concept of connotation. They differentiate between the connotative and denotative meanings of sports team names, develop their own team names, logos, and text, and revise a news...

First graders participate in a guided reading instructional activity. In this guided reading instructional activity, 1st graders read David's Drawings by Cathryn Falwell, which is a realistic fiction book on the DRA:16 level. They...

Accompany a reading of First Come the Zebra written and illustrated by Lynne Barasch with a teacher's guide equipped with before reading, vocabulary, and after reading activities. Additional social studies,...

Practice reading strategies using Elizabeti's Doll by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen. Readers utilize decoding and comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading the story. A detailed list of text features, high frequency words,...

Readers are presented with a list of three questions and asked to actively listen to a story or article to answer them. They verbally answer the questions to learn the strategy. Next, read a story to them or have them silently read a...

Scholars warm-up their map skills with a discussion using location words to describe familiar places. An engaging video informs class members about latitude and longitude. Three leveled activities extend the learning experience for...

In a perfect marriage of social studies and science, groups work together to research and create a travel guide presentation to share with the class. Not only do kids learn about the climate and geography of a biome, but also the...

A three-part assessment promotes reading comprehension skills. Class members read literary texts and take notes to discuss their findings, answer comprehension questions, write summaries, and complete charts. 

That's Amazing! is the theme of an English language development unit created by Houghton Mifflin. Following a speak, look, move, and listen routine, scholars delve into topics; seasons, weather, animals, landforms, telling...

Researching facts about owls can be a hoot for your class. Let them wisely collaborate on this writing project. The resource is the second part of three parts. It is best to use all three lessons in order. 

Lois Lowry's The Giver is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking works of literature in the middle school curriculum. Round out your novel unit with a collection of reading activities, comprehension questions, memoir and...

Here is a must-have resource for studying fairy tales, myths, and folktales with your class! It includes instructional ideas, activities, and materials to support a month-long review of these three unique genres of writing.

Sixth and seventh graders compare and order integers. After locating integers in a newspaper, they describe examples of negative and positive integers. They draw a thermometer and locate positive and negative integers on the scale. In...

Study the three writing systems of Japanese: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Your middle schoolers will practice writing Kanji and write a mini story in English which uses at least 10 of the Kanji in the place of the English words....

Students explore Asian American culture. In this multicultural guided reading lesson, students brainstorm a list of communication tools and share languages they speak. Students read Grandfather Counts by Andrea Cheng, then discuss the...

Students complete guided reading activities for the book, Saturday At The New You I by Barbara e. Barber. They read about a young girl who visits her mother's beauty salon on Saturdays. They answer pre-reading questions and decide...

A collection of two lessons, kindergartners will identify two-dimensional shapes in solid shapes. They will develop basic knowledge of the components that make up a sphere, rectangular prism, pyramid, cylinder, cone, and cube. Young...

Creative activities help bring literature alive. The first of a set of lessons designed to accompany selections from Theme 4: Problem Solvers uses activities such as skits, responses to music, and social studies projects. These...

Students improve their reading comprehension through predicting, connecting with text and summarizing. Students should have already read the book Seedfolks and made predictions based upon what they had seen from the cover and pictures...

Sixth graders read a given passage silently. The student then reads the same passage orally to a partner. The partner records the number of words pronounced incorrectly. The student then sets goals to increase oral reading speed and...

Engage conversation and explore the journey as you challenge young readers to interpret the german folktale, "The Fisherman and His Wife" written by literary brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.