Second graders generate a list of opposites found in the book, "Kaleidoscope of Kids". They use newspaper and magazine pictures to find opposites.

Students develop their creative abilities. For this creative thinking lesson, students examine different shapes and drawings and discuss what it makes them think of. Students create self confidence by thinking together in groups.

The importance of accepting those who are different is the subject of a service learning project. Upper graders craft presentations for younger learners on ways to include everyone in the school community and to decrease the feelings of...

Complete research on Pourquoi tales and then lead your students in creating their own. This lesson accompanies another on Pourquoi Tales on our site and deals more with the writing process. Your class will put the tales together in a...

Lead a web search for information on writers and discuss the craft of purposeful writing as a class. Your students investigate "pourquoi tales" which are "why" stories. and then write their own examples of pourquoi stories to share in a...

Give your class the advantage of Thesaurus Power! They will use a thesaurus to understand word meanings and relationships. They focus on how a thesaurus functions and how it gives the entry word, definition, synonyms, antonyms, and part...

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...

Individually, words have power, but when added together, they can take on a whole other level of meaning. Readers learn about compound words in the 10th of 17 lessons of the Word Recognition and Fluency series. A script provides guidance...

To underscore the importance of practicing good listening skills class members engage in a series of activities that model poor listening skills. In pairs and then as a whole group, class members enact different, more positive techniques...

Do you know why woodpeckers have red heads? Why the possum has no hair on its tail? Why a cat has nine lives? Find out by downloading this resource that uses Zora Neale Hurston's collection Mules and Men as the basis of a study of...

Practice using the Turn the Question Around (TQA) method to answer reading comprehension questions based on short narrative paragraphs. Instructions and materials are included for direct, guided, and independent instruction. Responses...

Read and analyze the book, The Teacher From the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler with your class. They will compare/contrast the two Mrs. Greens with a Venn diagram, design a new book cover, create a paper mache mask, and complete a story...

Understanding different verb tenses begins with knowing how to decode words. A lesson on the -ed suffix with unchanging base words introduces readers to the past tense. Teachers present the skill with oral reading and spelling...

Is it do'nt or don't? How about doesn't or does'nt? A lesson on contractions helps learners identify, form, and use contractions. Components within the plan include direct instruction on decoding and encoding contractions, as well as...

Closed syllable words contain short vowel sounds. A phonics lessons introduces readers to consonant-vowel-consonant words. Guided instruction introduces the words with a series of dictation activities, and then learners practice reading...

Put on your pirate hat and get ready to teach r-controlled syllables. Learners practice using words that contain ar, or, er, ir, and ur. Instructors model how to decode words to isolate vowel teams, as well as combine r-controlled sounds...

Individually, letters have their own sounds, but when combined with other letters, those sounds completely change. Introduce letter combinations with a lesson that asks learners to search for combinations in familiar words and use oral...

Just like scholars plug something in to close a circuit, they must plug a consonant onto a word to make closed syllables. Help learners distinguish between open and closed syllables with a series of activities that emphasize open...

Use Mattie Stepanek’s Heartsongs book of poetry to inspire young poets to write about their own lives, experiences, and feelings. After reading the introduction to Mattie’s book, in which he talks about himself and his reasons for...

To whom will you assign this exercise that focuses on interrogative pronouns? Your students, of course! Learners complete 18 sentences by adding in the correct interrogative pronouns. The page includes a list of pronouns to choose...

What is poetry? Does hip-hop qualify as poetry? Do Shakespeare's monologues qualify as poetry? Class members grapple with these questions as they examine the poetic elements and themes presented in different texts. Groups of four study...

Looking for an easy way to encourage youngsters to write about a variety of different topics? Users simply choose an image to write about from a large selection of beautiful photographs and then compose original opinion pieces and...

Adjectives are supposed to describe nouns, but they can actually become nouns themselves! Learners review ten adjectives and transform them into the nouns found in their roots.

"Neuroscientists consider Cajal as important to their discipline as Einstein is to physics." The first of four lessons has scholars view Santiago Ramon y Cajal's drawings of neurons. They reflect and respond to the art through writing...