PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Birds
A Reading Adventure Pack takes a close look at birds. After reading a fiction and nonfiction book, scholars craft a thaumatrope, begin a birding journal using their sense of sight and hearing, and build a model bird using supplies from...
Curated OER
Dr. Seuss Author Study
Students listen to a story, then use the same format to write a class book.
Curated OER
I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! And Other Stories
Students read a story by Dr. Seuss and create characters from the story. In this instructional activity about reading a story, students will read I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! And Other Stories. Students make a tiger tail with a felt...
Curated OER
Creative Writing Inspired by Paintings
Third graders view a PowerPoint presentation of the images by Maxfield Parrish. They wirte a short story based on one image and create drawings of an imagined character.
Curated OER
Try a Drawing Drawer
Integrating art into your classroom every day just got easier. This fantastic idea provides 43 strips intended to keep early finishers busy and to bring art into the classroom. You cut the strips, put them in a drawer, and have early...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan: Breaking the Rules
Breaking the rules isn't always a bad thing, sometimes it pushes the boundaries of the imagination. Young art enthusiasts examine the Kevin Red Star piece, Knows Her Medicine Crow Indian. They analyze how the artist broke rules during...
Global Oneness Project
What Does it Mean to Be Resilient?
Imagine the determination it would take to build a helicopter out of scrap. Now imagine doing it while hindered by the effects of polio. Everything is Incredible, a short film by Tyler Bastian, introduces Agustin who has been working on...
Curated OER
Informative Writing for the Winter Season
Informational writing lessons can be creative and motivating for students.
Curated OER
Collage to Writing
Practice expository and creative writing with your class. Pupils use magazines to find pictures, cut them out, and create a collage. This work of art is then used as a writing prompt. They describe the collage in either a creative or...
Curated OER
Telling A Story
Young scholars brainstorm all the possible scenarios that would help them tell a story in detail with the whole class and with partners. They create web outlines to create a name story and then illustrate it with creative grammar usage...
Curated OER
Yakety-Yak
Do talk back! The transcript of one side of a telephone conversation launches a study of dialogue. Class members imagine the response of the speaker on the other side of the conversation and record these responses on the provided...
Curated OER
Save the Lofty Trees
Save the Lofty Trees, by Leslie Mills, provides the text for a study of the roles of animals and humans in the forest. Richly detailed, the plan offers two approaches to the play: as a scenario for children to imagine what actions would...
Have Fun Teaching
March Journal Prompts
Engage your class in writing right away during the month of March. This resource provides writing prompts for every day in March, and each is decorated with a shamrock. For most of the prompts, learners use creative writing skills,...
Channel Islands Film
Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island: Lesson Plan 4
Imagine being stranded all alone on an island for 18 years. How would you survive? Class members are challenged to makes necessities out of natural materials that would likely be found on an island.
EngageNY
Creating a Graphic Novelette and Peer Critique: Sections 2, 3, and 4
Let's get creative! With the fun resource, pupils continue working on their graphic novelettes about an invention, adding text and images to each section. When finished, they engage in a peer critique process, giving and receiving...
Curated OER
Bringing Household Items to Life
Use folk tales as inspiration for learning about and using personification in creative writing. Learners brainstorm together in order to practice personification before writing their own poems or paragraphs about a household object.
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Heroes
Three creative activities follow reading a fiction and nonfiction book about heroes. Scholars build hero action figures out of clay for make-believe play, explain in written form how they show bravery, kindness, patience, thoughtfulness,...
Curated OER
Responding to Literature: James and the Giant Peach
Fifth grade reader/writers create an alternate ending to an episode in Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach in which our protagonist "loses" the chance to magically solve all his problems. Prompts students not only to write creatively...
Curated OER
Masterpieces and the Mass-Produced
Students examine "masterpieces" and mass-produced objects as they discuss humankind's inventiveness and creativity. They also analyze the role of problem solving in the creation of masterpieces and mass-produced items.
Curated OER
Justice for All
A reading of Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter opens a discussion of justice and fairness. Using a Venn diagram and an Idea Wheel graphic organizer, class members consider the similarities and differences in these two terms. They then...
Curated OER
Hip Hip Hooray! Happy Birthday to Who?
Recognize Dr. Seuss Day with fun and creative activities in your classroom.
EngageNY
Close Reading: Unpacking Specific Articles of the UDHR
Lesson 6 of this extensive unit finally has your class begin to work their way through specific articles from the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Before examining the rights actually detailed in the document,...
Virginia Department of Education
Identifying Audience and Purpose
Use a fun and creative activity to introduce junior high learners to how writing changes for different audiences and purposes. The activity begins with a reading by the instructor where teens visualize a food fight in the cafeteria. In...
Curated OER
I Hate to Complain but your Cheese Stinks
Students read and discuss the "fractured" fairy tale "The Stinky Cheese Man". They imagine that they are in the fairy tale and write a letter of complaint concerning the Cheese Man and how he stinks up the town.