To prepare readers for the major concepts in Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, an account of his life in Auschwitz, class members respond to a series of statements on an anticipation guide.

What would you do? To prepare for the final scene from Arthur Miller's The Crucible, readers are presented with a series of moral dilemmas and asked to consider what they would do in the same situations.

This unit introduces book clubs/literature circles to lower elementary classes, but could be adapted to higher grades. It outlines the anticipatory activity that includes a WebQuest, a discussion to clarify questions about the unit,...

Themes in Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier's young adult fantasy novel, are the focus of an anticipation guide that asks individuals to agree or disagree with a series of statements.

Help your charges solve a variety of fraction and skip counting problems using a problem solving process. As a class they work through a fraction problem step-by-step, and discuss a real-life connection to the problem. Students then play...

Here is a quick activity that could help your kids with their reading comprehension. They practice a classic strategy that gets them to start asking questions about what they are reading, while they are reading it. They write out...

Readers of Freak the Mighty employ a KWHL strategy to explore the topics of bullying and friendship prior to reading Rodman Philbrick’s story that is “like truth serum. . . whether it really happened or not.” Research could be extended...

After reading the introduction to Maus I, class members use A KWHL approach to determine what they know, what they want to know, and where they can find information about World War II, the Holocaust, and other topics associated with Art...

What are the characteristics of effective public speaking? Emerging orators choose a fairy tale to present orally to the class. After modeling yourself, divide the class into small groups, having them critique each others' oral...

After a review of the steps involved in writing a summary, class members read The Physics of Baseball by Sarah Ives and use a story web to identify the important details to include in their summary. Class members then choose an article...

Students analyze phoneme sequence in a word. They spell words using phoneme analysis and read new words using phoneme analysis.

Text marking and a T-chart format to distinguish important information from trivia help elementary readers summarize effectively. Encouraging readers to construct a chapter summary from paragraph-level topic sentences is another sound...

Prior to reading Fever 1793, class members are introduced to vocabulary drawn from the text of Laurie Halse Anderson's novel with a bingo-style activity. The vocabulary list, a teacher copy with definitions, and the bingo template are...

A new baby means a lot of changes for Peter! Ezra Jack Keats presents this common childhood experience in his story Peter's Chair, the context of a detailed vocabulary study. Before you read, introduce the three new words scholars...

Third graders practice word recognition and vocabulary building. They find word cards in the classroom. Then they practice reading the words and using them in sentences. Additional practice is gained by writing the words and using them...

After answering comprehension questions (good for a homework reading check), class members analyze "Comin' Thro the Rye," and using the included guidance questions, discuss Holden's misreading of Robert Burns' poem. The URL to text of...

Here is a way to build your pupils' public speaking abilities. The lesson plan describes a reader's report chair, which is used each week by a student who has just finished reading a book. The featured reader sits in the chair and talks...

After reading a book on their own, pupils prepare an oral report on the book,  and sit in the "Readers Report Chair" when giving the report to the class. They are taught to briefly summarize the book by talking about one of two...

One of the most confusing aspects of any presidential election year is the role of the Electoral College. Learners read a bit about how the Electoral College works and then they hold a mock election in their classroom. They'll redraw a...

Show your young researchers how to find information, brainstorm a topic, map or outline their own stories, and create rough drafts. This lesson plan also shows learners how to peer edit, conference with the teacher, and write their final...

Help your elementary learners distinguish between short and long vowel /o/ sounds. They are introduced to the vowel-consonant-e pattern that changes short vowel sounds into long vowel sounds. Then they practice reading and spelling words...

Young writers complete work with sentence structure. Theys go over the definition of a sentence before deciding whether given groups of words are sentences. They view and identify the sentences on a teacher made chart.

Students investigate what boys and girls can do after participating in readings and class discussions. They examine how gender stereotypes and name-calling can influence what students think they can and cannot accomplish.

Third and fourth graders study literary devices and figurative language. They view a PowerPoint presentation (which you must create) to review hyperbole, idiom, simile, and metaphor. They read and discuss the book There's A Frog in...