Take the fear out of reading with this series of three lessons from HotWire Magazine about fears and phobias. Each lesson contains pre-reading and post-reading activities aimed at improving learners' reading comprehension skills with the...

In this engaging activity involving close analysis of abstract expressionist art, your class members will not only discover more about artist Friz Scholder's Native American art, but they will also have the opportunity to consider...

Set up a listening center, record the provided script, and see how well your class can manipulate phonemes based on the instructions you've provided. This center-based activity builds the phonological awareness and phoneme manipulation...

Show your scholars that they make inferences every day and might not even know it. Through scaffolded instruction, they break down the process of drawing information from context. Using example sentences and didactic questioning,...

Look for the signal words! Scholars get both instruction and practice comparing and contrasting. Although it is completely scripted, it can also serve as a detailed outline. Demonstrate this as you read a passage (included) and search...

Designed to assess your class's ability to follow directions, this reading activity has learners split into groups, read a series of instructions, read a passage, and answer two lists of questions. Can they remember to raise their hand...

Discover that Kenyan children aren't much different from your young scholars as they read Kelly Cunnane's story For You are a Kenyan Child. This story is an excellent resource for vocabulary in context, and introduces new words...

Franklin the turtle is on another adventure in Paulette Bourgeois' book Franklin Goes to the Hospital, and there are plenty of new words for your young readers to explore as they hear this story. Although you can include more,...

Use the Caldecott Award-winning book Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (which can be found on YouTube if you don't have it) to guide budding readers through vocabulary in context. Although the...

Barbara Joosse approaches an age-old question through an equally traditional culture in her story Mama, Do You Love Me?, which helps budding readers explore Native American vocabulary in context. Here you'll find...

The heartfelt true story of Owen the hippopotamus and Mzee the 133-year-old tortoise will have budding readers engaged as they practice vocabulary in the context of Isabella Hatkoff's nonfiction story. Although you could include more,...

There's something about the classic volcano demonstration that can grab any learners' attention. Scholars begin with a reading and grand conversation about volcanoes, construct an erupting volcano using vinegar and baking soda, then...

If one ice cream cone represents three ice cream scoops, and Bob has four ice cream cones, then how many scoops does Bob have? Learners solve these kind of questions with their new understanding of pictographs.

Combine art, math, language arts, drama, and delicious Jell-o with a instructional activity based on the African folktale Anansi and the Tug o' War. Kids make predictions and discuss plot points of the story before joining in...

Reinforce reading comprehension with a instructional activity about The Archer and the Sun, a Chinese folktale. Kids learn some background information about Chinese culture before reading the story, and answer literacy...

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth novel in the series by J.K. Rowling, is the focus of a directed reading worksheet that begins by asking readers to examine the book cover and chapter titles and to predict what the story...

How do your pupils feel about reading? Hand out this survey to find of if your students read often, enjoy reading, talk about what they read, and more.

Get ready to saddle up! Novice riders view diagrams to see the differences between English and Western saddles and bridles. They then learn the steps to saddling and bridling a horse and review safety instructions. Finally, it's riders up!

Who determines the Seven Wonders of the World, and what criteria is used to evaluate these locations? Discover the efforts to promote cultural diversity and preserve man-made monuments during the world's first-ever global vote in 2007 to...

What determines whether a function has an inverse? Learners investigate that criteria when they examine values in a partially completed input-output table for two different functions. The task is to complete the table so that one of the...

How many different ways can you represent a whole? In a picture that represents six parts (two of which are shaded), learners are asked to label the parts appropriately to show how three different mathematical interpretations can be...

Here is a great problem-solving activity for young mathematicians. Intended solely for instructional purposes, the activity is appropriate for learners to add four numbers together. Not only must they add four numbers together,...

Ideal for use as an introduction to the idea of inverse functions, this activity investigates rainfall as a function of time. Learners use the data displayed in a table of values to analyze the function and its inverse, including why the...