K5 Learning
Saving the Birds
Learn about the kindness and strength of Abraham Lincoln with a reading comprehension activity. After third and fourth graders read a short story about Lincoln saving a family of robins, they answer four questions about the plot and...
Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach Lesson Plans
Immerse yourself in the world of giant bugs, rolling peaches, and brave little boys with an interdisciplinary unit on James and the Giant Peach. Young readers focus on the scientific themes of Roald Dahl's classic novel with bug hunts,...
Curated OER
Comparing Themes
Students explore themes through the novels The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien. In this literature lesson, students identify the themes in each novel and find supporting evidence that develops them....
Curated OER
Making a Sculpture of the "Theme"
Students brainstorm by jotting down ideas or diagrams ideas that will assist them to create an original sculpture and then, construct their own sculpture on the "theme." They create a sculpture and take a digital photograph of their...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Nature: Friend and Foe: Challenge Activities (Theme 6)
The teacher doesn't always have to be the expert in the classroom. The first in a series of three supplementary activities Nature: Friend or Foe uses hands-on research tasks and projects to enhance readers' understanding of non-fiction...
Novelinks
The Little Prince: Picture Book Strategy
Picture books aren't just for children; they carry strong, valuable messages for adult as well. Explore the audience for Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince with a instructional activity that compares picture books to...
Curated OER
Reader's Theater
Conduct a Reader's Theater. Third, fourth, and fifth graders rewrite books with a baseball theme to a Reader's Theater format. They form groups of four or five, practice reading the script, and then perform it for an audience.
Curated OER
Handprint Apples
If you're using an apple theme in your pre-school or kindergarten class, then this project is perfect. Little ones make hand print apples in order to create art while exploring a tactile sensation.
K5 Learning
The Parade
Parades are a joy to watch and learn about. Class members read about a child who attended a parade with her mother and brother, match past tense verbs from the reading, identify and fill in blanks for sight words candy,...
Curated OER
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
"People Everyday" offers class members an opportunity to develop their literacy analysis skills and to develop media literacy. Guided by an included list of discussion questions, groups examaine the word choice, literary devices used,...
Curated OER
Story Telling with Black & White Photography
4th-8th graders will explore Wright Morris' photography and create their own black and white photographs. They will then use the photographs to portray a message they want communicated by writing a narrative telling a story about the...
Curated OER
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Students study paintings and use their knowledge of story elements to analyze the art. In this art analysis lesson plan, students review a novel for its elements. Students study the image At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance and discuss the...
Curated OER
Lots of Lessons from Aesop
Aesop’s Fables offer young learners an opportunity to study figurative language. After reviewing theme, simile, alliteration, and metaphor, model for your pupils how to identify examples of these devices in the fable. Class members then...
Curated OER
Perseverance: Keep Going
Kids evaluate world history events that show perseverance by creating artistic images. They investigate historic photographs and images which conjure up the feelings of perseverance, then utilize acrylic paints to capture the...
Curated OER
Fairy Tale Alliterations
Fairy tales are the perfect way to focus on alliteration. Learners complete activities relating to alliteration and similes using a fairy tale theme. Then, they complete an acrostic poem using the words fairy tale.
Curated OER
Understanding the Elements of Fiction
Inform your class on the elements of fiction: themes, settings, characters, plots, dialogue, narration, flashback, clues, climax, resolution. They write the definitions of the terms on the worksheet provided.l Tip: Have them write a...
Curated OER
The Process of Art Criticism
High schoolers interpret possible meanings of works of art by analyzing how specific works are created and how they relate to historical and cultural contexts
Curated OER
Using Drama to Examine Communities: Walking in Others' Shoes
Encourage your readers to make connections between texts with this resource. After compiling notes for each text read (you choose the texts), groups craft skits in which major characters from each text meet. There is a rubric for the...
Curated OER
Pioneer Values in Willa Cather's My Antonia
Included in this resource are a variety of activities to do while reading Willa Cather's My Antonia. The activities, which range from mapping out Nebraska to writing activities about pioneer living, are all designed with one...
Reed Novel Studies
The Light in the Forest: Novel Study
"Make new friends but keep the old" is a wise saying. However, True Son, a main character in The Light in the Forest, struggles doing just that. Once living among the white people, he was taken into an Indian tribe for several years....
Reed Novel Studies
The Wednesday Wars: Novel Study
Teacher's pet or enemy? Holling, a character in The Wednesday Wars, feels his teacher is out to get him. However, he has to remain on his best behavior to ensure his father's business does not suffer. How will he ever survive 7th grade?...
Reed Novel Studies
The Search for Delicious: Novel Study
Have you ever gone looking for one thing but ended up discovering something else? That is exactly what happened to Gaylen, a character in The Search for Delicious. Gaylen begins looking for a food to label as delicious, but...
Santa Ana Unified School District
The Power of Point of View
Sometimes a whole story can change based on the perspective of the person telling it. Practice identifying and analyzing point of view in various reading passages and writing assignments with a language arts packet, complete with Common...
Curated OER
A Multi-Media Approach to Teaching The Grapes of Wrath
Integrate history, math, and art into a study of The Grapes of Wrath with a series of activities that ask learners to investigate the social, political, economic, and environmental factors at play during the 1930s. Designed to be used...