How do all the lessons and activities you have planned for your class align to Common Core State Standards? This can feel like a very daunting question. Help ease the process by referencing a template that not only lists and...

A reader's journal can help pupils comprehend, connect to, and remember a text. Have them follow the prompts here to write journal entries for any literary text.

Here, young historians compare their early lives to that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s. They listen to a read aloud of a story by Dr. King's sister, and then write in the provided reflective journal template. Lastly, they share their...

This review of a novel project is a great way to ensure accountability for independent reading. The assignment sheet, templates, samples, and rubrics are all part of the packet materials.

Help make children's vacations a little more meaningful with this collection of writing materials. Offering numerous writing paper templates, writing prompts, and coloring pages, this resource engages children in creating a written...

Poetic language is abundant in Natalie Babbitt's beautiful novel, Tuck Everlasting. Learners note the examples of similes, metaphors, and personification they find as they read, and illustrate how the language creates a sensory...

Prior to reading Unwind, Neal Shusterman's 2007 young adult science fiction novel, class members research the common definition of words drawn from the novel that will come to have a very different meaning to them as they are...

Examine character in depth. Over the course of these six lessons, learners explore their own character traits, determine the traits of characters in the books they read, practice comparing and contrasting, and collaborate in small...

Explore the characters in My Antonia by Willa Cather with a biopoem assignment. Pupils use the provided format to write their poems about any character from the book.

Students read Pumpkin Pumpkin. In this language arts lesson, students read the story and tell one fact about pumpkins. Students illustrate their pumpkin facts and share with the class.

Students read the book Down By The Bay and sing the song that goes with it. In this Down By The Bay lesson plan, students also come up with other rhymes that could go with the song.

Students explore language arts by reading a classic story. In this oral storytelling instructional activity, students read the book The Three Bears and identify the characters and discuss how their voices would sound. Students practice...

Hear ye! Hear ye! Encourage your young keyboard/piano players to develop sound habits with a resource packet that introduces a dynamic learning method. The free sample lessons, part of a for-purchase program, are designed to be used in a...

What is and what will be the role of newspapers in the future? Keeping this essential question in mind, class members use print, electronic, and/or web editions of newspapers, to investigate topics that include financial...

“Words can be like x-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything.” Readers of Brave New World will be pierced by an activity that asks them to use details from the text to craft a biopoem for one of the characters in Aldous...

Class members use the think-pair-share strategy to compare the views of W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington and to consider how each man's backgrounds influenced his philosophy.

Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...

Rome wasn't built in a day, but researchers can be with proper scaffolding. This writing unit has scholars write a research paper through scaffolding of various parts of the process. Learners begin with identifying a topic and crafting a...

Students analyze illustrations of workers in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this social science lesson, students examine photographs of workers and identify the types of work that were available in the 19th century compared to the 20th...

Look for the signal words! Scholars get both instruction and practice comparing and contrasting. Although it is completely scripted, it can also serve as a detailed outline. Demonstrate this as you read a passage (included) and search...

Stress the importance of authenticating online resources and understanding the sources of websites' information with this activity. Using a Web-based activity, the lesson prompts young learners to think critically about determining the...

Using a character map, learners assign traits to characters from Nicholasa Mohr’s El Bronx Remembered: A Novella and Stories. In addition, groups record evidence from the stories to justify the labels and use these sheets to prepare for...

  Learners 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 participate in activities base on the story of the The Gingerbread Boy. For this literacy lesson, students listen to the story before retelling a number of times. They use a variety of props during the retellings such as...