5 Broken Cameras, the award-winning documentary nominated for a 2013 Academy Award and winner of the Sundance 2012 Directors Award is the focus of a resource packet that includes a lesson plan, discussion guide, reading lists, background...

Vocabulary from Peggy Rathmann's award-winning illustrated picture book, Officer Buckle and Gloria, named one of the National Education Association's top 100 books for children, is featured in a colorful, presentation that not only...

Help readers understand the roles of authors and illustrators and why they have been recognized by medals of excellence. Your class will discuss and then create illustrations for a book. When they have finished, you can hold your own...

Read Pink and Say and discuss the Civil War with your upper elementary learners. They create a KWL about the Civil War and record words relating to the Civil War as they read the book. Then they work in groups to create an ABC...

Candace Fleming's award winning Ben Franklin's Almanac is the anchor text for a classroom guide that provides teachers with a cache of pre, during, and post-reading activities.

Second graders explore the books in the Elizabeti Series. In this reading comprehension lesson, young readers discuss pre-reading focus questions about their feelings on the first day of school. They investigate the book and describe the...

Foreshadowing, flashbacks, and imaginary places are the three topics of focus in this two-lesson plan packet written especially for the book, Bridge to Terabithia. Each lesson plan also comes with worksheets and activities to support...

Create a cross-curricular learning experience around a shared reading of Cynthia Rylant's book Snow. From writing poetry and a singing a song about snow, to creating paper snowflakes and solving math story problems, this resource...

Leaners read the book Let's Make Tacos and draw a line from the sequence clue words to the step-by-step actions in the book. In order to complete this exercise, they use words such as first, next, last, after, and more. Excellent ideas...

Second graders investigate information in non-fiction texts. They review the features of a non-fiction text and read the book Nature's Food Chains: What Polar Animals Eat. Pupils discuss the text features and write down one fact they...

This useful approach to determining themes based on specific details from a book is aimed at readers of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee. It could also easily be adapted for use with other books or readings. The class identifies recurring...

Start kids thinking about point of view and autobiographies by telling them a short story about your morning (first person), and then asking a volunteer to re-tell the story to you (second person). There are tips to help you tie this...

Readers of Orson Scott Card's award-winning science fiction novel, Ender's Game use the provided KWL worksheet to list what they already know about war, what they think they will learn in reading the book, the new information they...

Japanese architecture is rich in symbolism and culture. Critical thinkers engage in three activities intended to expose them to the beauty of Japan. They read through the book, Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki and watch the...

Teach children that just because something is old, doesn't mean you have to throw it away with a reading of Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback. Engaging children with an arts and crafts activity in which they patch the...

Patricia MacLachlan’s award-winning novel, Sarah, Plain and Tall, is the focus of a comprehensive study guide. For each chapter, readers answer fact-based and interpretative questions, define and use vocabulary words in a sentence, and...

In this reading worksheet, students answer 10 multiple-choice questions about the book. For example, "What happened to the very first edition of the Laundry News?"

Students explore scenes from Katherine Paterson's book, Bridge to Terabithia. In this visualization instructional activity, students listen to the story read aloud. The students then choose words and phrases that paint a picture in their...

First graders sort pictures of animals into categories. In this sorting lesson plan, learners use the book On The Farm to categorize their animals.

Read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and put the events of the story in order. Each event is written on a sentence strip and while the teacher reads, listeners can arrange the strips inthe correct order. After reading, reshuffle the...

Use the pictures from Knuffle Bunny to determine setting with your class. Model your visualization and thinking process, asking questions to help your listeners determine time and place. After reading this story, go through other...

First and second graders explore character as a story element. They  listen to the first part of the story First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg and observe the teacher modeling a compare and contrast characters activity. Learners...

Examine the book Stargazers by Gail Gibbons. Young readers will practice reading and interpreting information from diagrams in this informational text. They work together as a class on this skill and then move into independent...

Help young readers find the setting in the story. They will review what a setting is with a modeled example by the teacher. After reading The Cow Who Wouldn't Come Down by Paul Brett Johnson and completing a practice sheet,...