Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic...

Twelfth graders use computers and the Internet to research a specified area, word processors to prepare an essay, a digital camera, a video camera gather visuals, and a scanner to add visuals to a PowerPoint presentation as they discover...

Exercise phonemic awareness of the vowel /a/ to help children become successful readers. They connect spoken phonemes to written grapheme's and create a relationship between the vocal gesture of /a/ and its grapheme map in text and words.

Drill and practice phonemes, letter formations, written language, vowel correspondences, as well as consonant correspondences with youngsters. They will locate and identify the /b/ in written and spoken words from flash cards containing...

Are you working on an Outsiders unit? Use this list of activities to deepen your middle schoolers' understanding of the novel. After reading S.E. Hinton's novel, young readers work on three required activities, including participating in...

Learners, after reading a novel, utilize geographic skills to map out the places described in the novel. They collect data, envision spatial features and then design a map to work off of to complete their assignment. Each student also...

Students research the culture of Mexico. In this Mexican culture lesson, students view a PowerPoint presentation about the culture of Mexico and the students take notes. Students write an essay about what they have learned.

Learn two new letters a week with this activity! After learning the two target letters, the class will make an alphabet video "performing" each letter. The letter's name, sound, and a motion associated with it will be included in the...

Understanding a word's etymology can really help with decoding and building vocabulary skills. Readers compare and contrast words of similar origins but with different difficulty levels. They focus on prefixes, suffixes, and affixes....

All about Canada! Learners explore the geography and providences of Canada by watching videos, studying maps and conducting internet research. By the end of this lesson, your class should be able to locate major areas and compare and...

Explore the origin of political parties in the United States. Learners work in groups to read and analyze copies of the "Report on Manufactures" written by Alexander Hamilton. Then, they complete a worksheet comparing the Federalists to...

Fill-out a story map to help your scholars with pre-writing. They will use a story map template to pre-write. They also organize their ideas into steps which become the foundation for their first draft. Concrete objects are brought in to...

You can cover literary elements, writing organization, and proofreading skills in this SMART board lesson plan. Using student paragraphs from a previous assignment, the class reviews the best examples of writing. A SMART board activity...

This well-designed presentation serves as an excellent test review for students who have just read the book "Sign of the Beaver." Students must answer fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, and matching questions from each chapter of the...

Second graders write a poem using words from a list and practice poetic forms. In this lesson on writing a peace poem, 2nd graders brainstorm words or phrases associated with "peace." Students choose a poetic form to express their...

Allow your class to use their imaginations and create fun creatures with various wooden shapes and other embellishments. What a great way to encourage your young artists to stretch their minds!

"Native American history leaps boldly off the colorful quilts and patchwork designs." Learners discuss Native American identity and symbolism by reading about a variety of Native quilters and their unique art process, and participate in...

Even young children watch sports and like team logos and products. It's never too early to think critically about what's onscreen. This exercise develops awareness that media communicate values (i.e. who participates in sports and who...

“The Gambler” and “The Journey” offer readers an opportunity to experience two very different views of Jewish life in Poland between WWI and WWII. Whether used as a part of a study of the Holocaust, or as a compare/contrast exercise, the...

Explore ethnicity and identity with a research and writing assignment. Class members conduct online research, looking in particular at images and carefully noting down their sources on notecards. They read about identity and compose...

Dive into Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and determine what it means to conform in society, and discuss as a group with the thoughts and plans available in these documents. Included are multiple activities and brain targets that form the...

Have your class doing everything from reading literature, analyzing literary devices, identifying independent and dependent clauses, discussing, and writing creatively with the rich resource found here. After a mini instructional...

Looking for a good lesson on dictionary and word definition skills? The lesson presented here is for you! In it, learners utilize a worksheet, embedded in the plan, to record a word's definition(s), etymology, multiple meanings,...

Included here are step-by-step instructions for conducting a close reading of The Voice That Challenged a Nation by Russell Freedman. After an individual and class reading, class members read carefully through the text excerpt,...