First graders listen to the story One and design a favorite color graph. In this language arts instructional activity, learners answer comprehension questions and discover the importance of standing up for a friend. They complete a...

Let's compare! One pair of scholars adds to the Salva/Nya anchor chart by gathering evidence about the characters from chapters 14 and 15 of A Long Walk to Water. The rest of the class pairs work on adding to the Survival anchor chart....

Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...

Practice sequencing with your 2nd graders via Patricia Polacco's Civil War book Pink and Say. Begin with a blindfold and a bag of mystery items. Connect their use of clues to identify what they can't see with the skill of making...

Encourage scholars to become a productive community member with a kite-themed lesson plan. Following a review and discussion, learners complete a Venn diagram that displays the connection between character traits needed to make a home...

Do not allow your pupils to ignore the connections among the characters in Katherine Paterson’s Newbery Medal winning novel, Jacob Have I Loved. Instead, provide them a semantic feature analysis chart that asks them to note things Louise...

Explore Chinese culture and customs with your class and allow them time to connect and compare their own experiences with experiences of character a from the short story The All-American Slurp. They create a short presentation on some...

Learners are immersed in the following goals of learning: The importance of consumerism in the 1920's. Also have learners recognize the connections between commodities and culture in the American past and present. Finally the ability for...

One of the keys for successful teaching is connecting curriculum to real-life experiences. This lesson on blogging does this, by making writing, revising, and publishing a reality. Pupils create a character for a story, write about their...

Readers select a character from Call of the Wild, record their responses to a series of prompts in a spiral notebook, and use details from the novel to support their thinking. The spirals are then used as source material to support...

Read the story Gingerbread Baby and use these various activities to connect to grammar, art, and point of view. In one activity, learners create character masks. They practice writing verbs on the back of the masks to tell what each...

To better understand how the author Kevin Henkes uses the theme of friendship throughout his books, learners engage in several compare and contrast activities. The class reads several Henkes titles and discusses the similarities in...

Students survey the characters in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet. Using Inspiration software, students create individual character webs for both Romeo and Juliet. Students describe the two main characters.

Students investigate major characters of history that are represented in children's literature. They conduct research using a variety of resources and each character is put into a class book as a presentation. The character includes a...

Bring Edgar Allan Poe's spooky story to life! After reading the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," middle and high schoolers identify the theme, character traits, irony, and other story concepts. During pre-reading, they take notes,...

Are you reading Lois Lowry's The Giver in your language arts class? Have your young readers create a PowerPoint presentation about their life, and how they connect to the lives of the characters from the novel. They present information...

Students practice the art of storytelling using realistic art. They pick one illustration of a character in the book and create a story about the possible life he lived. The important details that are needed is the name, occupation,...

To set the stage for reading Paradise Lost, class members compete an anticipation guide containing statements that connect to themes in Milton's epic poem.

Students write a persuasive letter to the government of an African country that has elephants as a resource. Students research and debate the pros and cons of ivory use. Students identify the value of ivory products versus the lives of...

Learners investigate the character trait of perseverance and how it is used to help a girl gain independence in a fictional story. The story also has them think about the value of relationships and then write reflectively about...

Eleventh graders explore slavery and the civil war. In groups, 11th graders discuss and slavery and identify reasons for its beginning. In groups, they role-play a character for a talk show. Students determine what slavery was like in...

Young readers plan and draft a book report focusing on the five key components of a novel: plot, character, setting, conflict, and theme. After completing a story board, pupils then prepare a PowerPoint book report that is shown to the...

Students use research skills on the Internet and write a biographical report and present it to the class. They utilize a worksheet that's imbedded in this plan to guide them in their research. students come to school dressed up as their...

Learn about the events that helped shape the United States of America. Elementary schoolers explore the Civil War with six different activities. Each activity has a different focus: literature connections, primary sources, vocabulary,...