Get out those scrabble tiles and a braille tape labeler because today we are playing a build-a-word game! Label several sets of scrabble tiles using the braille labeler, place them in a box, and have children take turns pulling letter...

Going to the doctor's office may be a source of stress and uncertainty for some children. Help your learners with special needs discover what to expect at and how to cope with their next trip to the doctor. They explore real medical...

Guide your class through the imagery of Lois Lowry's The Giver with a peaceful meditative experience. After you create a serene environment in your class, read through a provided script in which kids sift through their favorite...

You can prevent bullying in your classroom by addressing kindness, empathy, and acceptance with your littlest learners early on. After reading Don't Laugh at Me by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin, kids discuss the ways that words...

A 25-page packet includes eight detailed lesson plans centered around poems by Emily Dickinson. Each lesson begins with a burning question that students attempt to answer by using evidence from Dickinson's poems.

Third graders play a football spelling game where two teams spell words and gain yardage for each correctly spelled word. This clever spelling game will be highly motivational for your class! Each team gains ten yards every time they...

Motivate your class with this lesson! Learners use passages from Edgar Allan Poe's poetry to practice reading fluency. They read "The Raven" as a rap song to better understand the rhyming patterns and pauses.  

First and second graders explore the importance of having a beginning, middle, and end when writing stories. In this story writing instructional activity, students write short stories using the story diamond as a guide. They invite their...

Middle schoolers review library skills by rotating through teacher-created learning stations covering various topics. They discuss plagiarism, work on Almanac practice as a team, complete practice using indexes, and an abstracts handout...

Here is a rather esoteric resource that presents the archetypes found in “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” and would be appropriate for a college-level psychology or literature class, or as a teacher resource. Considered the “world’s oldest...

Let your learners voice their opinions on morals and human rights with an anticipation guide for Asa Butterfield's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Before reading the novel, kids read several statements that encourage them...

Students examine the history of Spanish in what is now the United States. They examine the current language status of the Hispanic population. Students are able to characterize Spanglish and Chicano English. They examine some features...

Students translate an entire Internet page from English into a target language. In small groups, they create a short story or document in their native tongue or find an Internet page in their own tongue that they translate into English.

Students discover enunciation and alliteration by reading tongue twisters in class.  In this language arts lesson, students listen and repeat some of the classic childhood tongue twisters along with their teacher.  Students...

This second instructional activity in a larger unit is perfect for the beginning of the year because it explicitly teaches 3rd graders how to use close reading skills by identifying unfamiliar words, figuring out the gist, and...

When astronauts get hungry in outer space, they can't just call and have a pizza delivered. In order to gain an appreciation for the challenges associated with space travel, young learners are given the task of selecting,...

Young scholars explore persuasive language. In this emotive language lesson, students consider the use of language that incites readers as they participate in reading and writing activities that require them to describe a tourist...

Young scholars examine the work of Carla Bachechi as a Peace Corp volunteer in Macedonia. Individually, they read various folktales from the country and break into groups to discuss how it is different than a novel. To end the lesson,...

As Nick wanders the grounds of Gatsby's mansion, he observes the behaviors of the rowdy guests and listens to the music pouring over the lawn. Bring the music of the jazz age into the classroom with Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues,"...

Free speech, privacy, and cyberbullying are the focus of a series of activities that prompt class members to engage in discussions about these interrelated topics. They view a segment from PBS’s series on bullying, read...

What is the difference between an adjective and an adverb? Encourages scholars to explore the answer to this question while building a foundation of the English language. The lesson comes complete with an attention grabber, notes, and a...

What do the theme song from Gilligan's Island, the nursery rhyme "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat," and the poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" all have in common? Why, they're ballads of course! Challenge your young balladeers to compose their...

What's the difference between the present perfect and simple past? Have your class practice identifying and using both of these verb tenses through pair activities, whole-class discussion, and a worksheet.

Help young learners understand friendship and empathy with two reading comprehension lessons. Each lesson focuses on a story about a child with autism, and encourages readers to compare and contrast the characters to each other and to...