Teaching Tolerance
Community Newsletter
What does it take to develop and publish a newsletter? Young academics create a newsletter with original artwork for their school or community. They explore social justice themes and spread messages of tolerance and inclusion. Scholars...
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Winter Olympics Decoding
In this Winter Olympics instructional activity, learners complete a decoding puzzles with the help of a word box at the bottom of the page. All words written "in code" are related to the Winter Olympics.
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Go Nuts with Peanuts
Students learn about peanuts through online research. In this peanut lesson, students use provided links to research information on the origins of the peanut. Students collect information about peanuts also called goobers.
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Tales of Edgar Allen Poe
Analyze the writing of Edgar Allen Poe by reading and then writing in a similar style. Budding authors learn about the life of Poe and read one or more of his famous works online. Partner groups create an original piece of writing using...
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The Learning Network Fill-In: Macbeth for Children
Help your learners attain vocabulary and practice reading comprehension with this cloze activity. Created by The Learning Network, this resource provides a New York Times article with the words already removed. Pupils can fill in the...
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The Learning Network Fill-In: When the Food Writer Is a Ghost
Introduce your class to ghostwriting while practicing comprehension. From The New York Times' The Learning Network, this article covers the topic of ghostwriting for cookbooks. There are blank spaces and a word bank. Learners can use the...
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The Judicial Branch
In this social studies instructional activity, students investigate the job of Sandra Day O'Connor in the judicial branch of the U.S. government. Students answer 25 questions, completing sentences with words from the word bank. This page...
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Yo! Conventions!
Learners get in groups, take a list of words, put them into story form, and punctuate them. They present their story to the class and consider how punctuation changes meaning. Great excercise.
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The Recycle Alphabet
First graders recognize words associated with recycling. In this environmental lesson, 1st graders go through the alphabet and think of words associated with recycling that start with a letter. Students create a recycling ABC book.
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Analyzing Verb Use: Part 2
With the Wordle ap in one hand, and their favorite writing piece in the other, 3rd graders analyze their verb usage. They select a piece they have written, type it into Wordle, then analyze their word choices and alter them using synonyms.
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Vocab-u-lous! Build a Fabulous Vocab
In this vocabulary worksheet, students select the best word choice to complete the sentence. The words all correspond to the theme of Valentine's Day.
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The Writing Center: Prepositions
While the focus is applicable to middle schoolers, high schoolers, and higher education, the slides are text heavy (as they were originally designed for higher education). Learners will review rules for using a preposition and how to use...
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Vowel Sounds
This plan aims to increase the reading proficiency of your fourth grade class. While no materials are provided, a list of activities to practice are included. Various activities include creating songs for short vowel sounds, using cue...
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Vocabulary Strategy: Call of the Wild
Here is a strategy for groups to contribute to whole class vocabulary development. Teams (based on seating rows) work together to look up dictionary definitions of words from upcoming sections of the book (though previous sections seem...
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Gary Paulsen's Canyons: Vocabulary Activity
The final chapters of Canyons (chapters 17-24) present readers with more challenging vocabulary. Two activities provide readers with an opportunity to figure out what they know, and then to use what they know to complete a word search...
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BECOME A LOGOPHILE
It's time to write! First, lead your emerging writers in a power writing activity. It takes six minutes and focuses on creative brainstorming. The class is given two words (duck and apple are suggested, but alter the words for different...
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Creating a Memorial Day Poster Poem
Does your class know about the meaning of Memorial Day? Discuss the history of the holiday in this lesson, which prompts elementary and middle schoolers to create word webs of ideas about the holiday. Additionally, they create poems...
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Vocabulary Building Activity
Practice using and spelling the -ful ending. Learners take dictation from you to create a word bank of six words with the -ful suffix. Then they unscramble the words. Finally, they write an original sentence for each word that must be...
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Vocab-u-lous! Build a Fabulous Vocab
In this vocabulary instructional activity, learners select the best choice to complete the sentence. All words begin with the letter "J" and challenge students with their originality.
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Heroic Vocabulary: Using Decoding Strategies and Thesaurus
Develop the decoding skills of your middle and high schoolers. Scholars participate in a classroom activity that requires them to decode a word with a prefix and suffix. They apply the skill of breaking the word into parts of meaning as...
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Techno Author
Here is a great way to explore language arts by completing a computer activity with classmates. Youngsters read a fairy tale in class and analyze where the beginning, middle and end are. They create their own story using clip art and...
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Twelfth Night Magic Square
Reading Twelfth Night? Words drawn from Shakespeare's comedy provide the words for a Magic Square vocabulary exercise. Directions for how to craft Magic Squares are included.
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Personification Lesson Plans and Resources
This resource on personification provides three different approaches aimed at different levels. The first, appropriate for upper elementary, provides examples of personification, followed by an exercise that requires replacing a word in...
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The Sand Horse
Fourth graders are introduced to the book THE SAND HORSE and discuss the title and cover illustration. They listen to the story listening for words and phrases to describe the setting. They then brainstorm key words to illustrate the...