Second graders create a proposal for the Science Spectrum to have an exhibit of a wide variety of aquatic animals for the children of the South Plains. These students would like to see aquatic animals up close.

Third graders pretend they have been asked to make t-shirts to show endangered plants and animals in the rainforest. Using the internet, they research what is happening in the rainforest and discover why the destruction of it is harmful...

Third graders pretend a major trading card company has asked them to help gather information on animals who live in the rainforest. In groups, they select an animal and use the sources given to them to gather the information. They create...

Useful in an Of Mice and Men unit, or in a unit that focuses on descriptive writing, this lesson prompts young authors to impersonate John Steinbeck's writing style in the opening passages of the novel. A Six Trait writing activity...

The stories of the Silver People, the West Indies immigrants hired to work on the Panama Canal, come to life in a lesson about the building of the Panama Canal. Groups research why the canal was built, how it was build, the working...

Students create drawings from their favorite book with sidewalk chalk.  In this reading comprehension lesson, students read Frog and Toad All Year and investigate the character known as the Ice Cream Monster.  Students...

Students apply reading strategies to improve comprehension and fluency. They establish a purpose for reading. Students read the The Shoemaker and the Elves by Esop. They go over the setting, characters, problem, solution and ending of a...

Students solve systems of equations with fluency. In this algebra lesson, students graph, use elimination and substitution to solve systems of equations. They identify the point of intersection using algebra.

Designed with many of the Common Core standards in mind, this 10-lesson unit is brimming with ELL strategies, teacher's notes, and the best of core instructional methods for teaching the common elements of folktales, and exploring...

Young scholars are able to evaluate their peers' essays to determine clarity, completeness, and persuasiveness. They are able to revise their own essays for greater clarity and fluency, adding explanation where needed and cutting...

Students create story webs to aid comprehension of ecosystems. In this reading strategies lesson, students discover the importance of organizing information while reading a nonfiction text. Students produce story webs to communicate...

Using everything they have learned about writing paragraphs over the past few lessons of the unit, class members compose an informative paragraph independently. This is an authentic assessment of their ability, since learners have...

Fifth graders investigate very important points in stories. In this reading comprehension lesson, 5th graders read a story and determine what the very important points are within the story by using notes and discussing what they feel the...

Young scholars examine the concept of historical perspective in writing. They read the diary of Sally Wister, a young Patriot from Philadelphia during the Revolutionary Era. Additionally, they must include different points of view in...

What a skillful way to incorporate Shel Silverstein, a wonderful author, into the classroom. Composed of three tasks, children are led through a series of text-dependent questions that force them to unveil the meaning of Silverstein's...

Pupils develop oral fluency through reading and singing. They sing "This Land is Your Land" and discuss what the pictures and words mean in the song. They connect the song and poem and previous learning and write a journal.

Biographies can be a fun topic for any history project. Learners choose one famous person that lived between 1865 and 1930 to research. They gather information, work on reading comprehension, and use what they find to create slide shows...

There are lots of good reasons not to smoke. Make sure your middle and high schoolers understand each and every one with a lesson that prompts them to read anti-smoking posters, note the main points, and write a short response on the...

Compare and contrast two pieces of literature with this lesson. With the use of a Venn diagram, pupils make connections between literature and real-life situations. They practice skills of surveying a text looking for important details,...

Provide pupils samples of different types of poems including haikus, narrative, nonsense, shape, and rhyming poems. In groups, class members read the poems, establish their general meaning, identify poetic devices, and rate the poems,...

After reading a short story, learners will create dances that show homophones and verbs. Their dance sequences involve three verbs and transition movements in between each verb. Tip: Have the class dance out the sequence of events from...

In this creative writing lesson, pupils listen to the song "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More", read the book adaptation titled I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!, and pay close attention to the rhyming scheme, punctuation and illustrations. ...

A thoroughly-written lesson plan and a plethora of worksheets about integers comprise this resource. Neophyte number crunchers learn to recognize integers, add and subtract them, and apply the concepts to the designing of a personal...

This unit on fractions allows for upper-aged elementary learners to explore ways to find the greatest common factor and least common multiple of two numbers. Ultimately, young mathematicians will be able to identify equivalent fractions,...