Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

The second segment of a seven-part series reviews the challenge of determining whether gargling with salt water helps a sore throat. Individuals journal what they know about the challenge and what they are trying to figure out to...

Learning Greek and Latin roots is an important way to develop vocabulary, but it does get quite boring. Use this list of ideas to add some fun to your daily lessons. Lots of games are suggested to get your kids up and moving. Note: no...

The Society for the History of Psychology provides a list of teaching activities designed to acquaint learners with the various fields of psychology and introduce them to prominent psychologists. Details for several of the activities are...

A good prompt is hard to find, especially ones that encourage application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of a text. Help is here in the form of a prompt list for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four that offers essay topics that...

Middle schoolers will sing the praises of this music program. The resource, designed as an overview for music instructors, is loaded with ideas, activities, and links. Not a sour note in the packet. 

Make a study of Timothy and his development as a character over the course of the first half or so of The Cay. This idea focuses in particular on chapters 10 through 12. Learners start out by working on double-entry journals created in...

Tap into the wisdom and knowledge of older members of the community with this New York Times plan. To warm up, learners write about and discuss advice they have been given. After reading "The Life Report," an op-ed column that asks older...

Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...

Students create lists about a topic that they choose to generate ideas for writing without worrying about grammar or punctuation. In this lists lesson plan, students first create a list about snow with their teacher.

Invite your youngsters to learn about a state or region through their choice of a creative project. The resource lists 15 project options that range from a 3-D map of the area, to a puppet show about the region. Pupils can also propose...

Keep your class in conversation with others across the country or across the sea by writing letters to pen pals. The activity calls for students to be pan pals with pupils in Africa; however, the listed steps could be used for any...

Strengthen the bonds of friendship within your class with a reading of E.B. White's award-winning novel, Charlotte's Web. Focusing on the unique characters in the story and the relationships they develop, young readers draw...

Daily routines not only help to manage classrooms, they can also provide students with rich opportunities for learning. This activity supports young learners in developing their number sense by counting up the school days on a class...

Extend learning through summer with these activity ideas! Individuals can choose one or all nine of the activities, which range from a summer reading goal to an examination of local insects (with accompanying story prompt). See the...

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Plant growth experiments offer rich, cross-curricular learning opportunities that can really excite and engage young learners. In this series, children work in pairs planting, measuring, and comparing the height of bean plants in order...

The Harlem Renaissance brought forth many American art forms including jazz, and the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. Using a carefully curated set of documents from the Library of Congress, pupils see the cultural...

Make breaking a leg a less troublesome experience. Groups brainstorm designs for crutches that have devices that help carry items. They build prototypes of their devices to test out their designs.

An activity work alongside a narrative text of your choice. With reading comprehension at its focus, readers complete worksheets covering character descriptions.

Get started with The Cay. First, provide some background information and images that relate to the novel. Then pupils can create double-entry journals. Once that is complete, read the first two chapters, encouraging individuals to record...

Characters often change over the course of a story or novel. Use the sample graphic organizer provided here to track how the narrator has responded to the sequence of events in chapter four through six of The Cay. In addition to this...

Students read information from the Holocaust Museum. They also read Anne's Diary for 1942. Students choose three entries from 1943 and read them, students complete a response sheet for entry. They watch the film "Life is Beautiful" and...

Young actors willingly suspend their disbelief as they improvise a scenario in which they are workers at a clothing factory and must decide their attitude toward the actions of co-worker Rosa Parks.