Immaculate, accumulation, dissipation. Vocabulary drawn from chapter 16 of James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, can prove to be challenge for readers. To help kids understand the meaning of these words and what they add to the...

Student explore feelings, how to deal with them and how to express feelings. In this feelings lesson, students discuss different ways they feel. Students sing songs about feelings and show actions for each feeling.

Young writers examine dialogue conventions, including indentation, quotation marks, and expressing thoughts and feelings through a fictional text. By noticing where and when authors use dialogue, they decide how to incorporate dialogue...

In this finding the sums of word problems worksheet, students add the one-digit word numbers and numerals and use the pictures to assist them. Students solve four problems.

How do good writers exhibit emotion in their work without using an emotion word (angry, sad, happy, etc.)? This plan offers learners model texts that describe an emotion without using an emotion word. A well-formatted writing activity is...

Transition words in writing are the focus of the language arts lesson presented here. In it, learners cut out the word-sort cards (embedded in the plan), and put them into four categories: time, examples, space, and summary. They find a...

The power of a word. Readers learn the importance of word choice in shaping a text by using a Powerful Language T-chart to separate strong words and phrases from those that are more bland. They then complete a third read and question set...

Young scholars study a word family before listing rhyming words in that family. They use the words to begin developing lines of poetry. They continue writing poetry individually and finally, they illustrate their work using graphic...

First graders use action spelling. For this high frequency words lesson students are read the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Students add words to the classroom wall that are in the book. Students act out words from...

Writing can become one-dimensional if authors don't involve all their senses. First, scholars observe a strange object which, ideally, they can touch and even smell. Without using certain words (you can create a list or have the class...

Second graders focus on how descriptive words help them see, feel, and hear a story better. They listen to a read aloud of Angela Johnson's, "The Leaving Morning," while giving a thumbs up signal each time they hear a "sense or how"...

Students use descriptive words in writing. In this descriptive words lesson plan, students learn to show instead of tell. Students enter into a discussion of adjectives and adverbs, then add descriptive words to sentences to make vivid...

If you've ever wished you could respond to an author's message, an instructional activity that connects three poems with the same concept will appeal to you. Based on the first few lessons' focus on Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate...

Young writers personalize their journals by making their own. Whether they make covers for existing journals or make their own books, the activity encourages kids to express themselves in words and images.

To conclude the unit on "Exploring Identity in the United States," pupils consider whether it is possible to combine many voices into one national identity. After creating an identity chart that lists words, phrases, and images that they...

Students study the importance of being clean and healthy while working with rhyming words. They waddle like penguins when the hear rhyming words in sequences, and tap their feet and clap their hands in tune to a rap about being healthy....

Students are introduced to vocabulary words from the story Cows Can't Fly and identify words during the reading of the story. In this introduction to vocabulary words lesson, students recall vocabulary words from the story and...

Young writers compose an opinion piece that details who they feel is worth more than gold.

Fourth graders use the text, "Fair's Fair" to examine how characters' feelings and motives are built throughout a text through descriptive phrases. They look at what a character does and says to record on their writing frames. Finally,...

Students look at a picture book and observe what the facial expressions show.  In this character's feelings lesson plan, students write what they think the character might be saying on each page and the punctuation they...

Students, after explaining the famous quote, "A picture is worth a thousand words," supply the missing words to a wordless story by Mercer Mayer called "A Boy, A Dog, and A Frog." They brainstorm the setting, plot, descriptive words,...

Students examine what respect is and isn't. In this character education lesson, students create a t-chart of what respect looks like and doesn't look like. The teacher adds the words bias, prejudice, stereotype and racism to the chart....

Give your littlest learners the opportunity to learn how to discuss, observe, and visualize. First, they determine if the image they are looking at is a photograph or a painting. Then they work together to brainstorm words that describe...

Fifth graders write a speech.  In this history lesson, 5th graders define the word infamy and listen to a speech by FDR.  Students work in groups to summarize his speech and rewrite sections of the speech.