Included in this resource are a variety of activities to do while reading Willa Cather's My Antonia. The activities, which range from mapping out Nebraska to writing activities about pioneer living, are all designed with one...

Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic...

Exercise phonemic awareness of the vowel /a/ to help children become successful readers. They connect spoken phonemes to written grapheme's and create a relationship between the vocal gesture of /a/ and its grapheme map in text and words.

Are you working on an Outsiders unit? Use this list of activities to deepen your middle schoolers' understanding of the novel. After reading S.E. Hinton's novel, young readers work on three required activities, including participating in...

Students, after reading a novel, utilize geographic skills to map out the places described in the novel. They collect data, envision spatial features and then design a map to work off of to complete their assignment. Each student also...

All about Canada! Learners explore the geography and providences of Canada by watching videos, studying maps and conducting internet research. By the end of this lesson plan, your class should be able to locate major areas and compare...

Explore the origin of political parties in the United States. Learners work in groups to read and analyze copies of the "Report on Manufactures" written by Alexander Hamilton. Then, they complete a worksheet comparing the Federalists to...

Fill-out a story map to help your scholars with pre-writing. They will use a story map template to pre-write. They also organize their ideas into steps which become the foundation for their first draft. Concrete objects are brought in to...

This well-designed presentation serves as an excellent test review for students who have just read the book "Sign of the Beaver." Students must answer fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, and matching questions from each chapter of the...

Second graders write a poem using words from a list and practice poetic forms. In this lesson on writing a peace poem, 2nd graders brainstorm words or phrases associated with "peace." Students choose a poetic form to express their...

Even young children watch sports and like team logos and products. It's never too early to think critically about what's onscreen. This exercise develops awareness that media communicate values (i.e. who participates in sports and who...

“The Gambler” and “The Journey” offer readers an opportunity to experience two very different views of Jewish life in Poland between WWI and WWII. Whether used as a part of a study of the Holocaust, or as a compare/contrast exercise, the...

Looking for a good lesson on dictionary and word definition skills? The lesson presented here is for you! In it, learners utilize a worksheet, embedded in the plan, to record a word's definition(s), etymology, multiple meanings,...

Included here are step-by-step instructions for conducting a close reading of The Voice That Challenged a Nation by Russell Freedman. After an individual and class reading, class members read carefully through the text excerpt,...

Here's a great way to make vocabulary words drawn from Edward Bloor's novel Tangerine memorable. Kids create a word square, and in one quadrant write the word. A picture goes in a second quadrant, the definition in a third, and a...

How affected is Thinks Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe's personal biography? Using a four corners strategy, and evidence from their readings, class members debate the degree of biographical influence in Achebe's novel.

Plastic math? Have young learners count and name the number of plastic items in their centers. Kindergartners match sight word cards to the number of plastics in a given group, while learning that plastics come in all different shapes,...

What a wonderful way to follow up on the reading of, Roll of Thunder Hear Me Cry! The lesson plan has pupils split up into small groups of two to four students. Each group must work collaboratively to create a multimedia project that...

Learners explore methods of written communication. In this Plains Indian instructional activity, students create pictographs representing everyday modern life after observing the pictographs used by the Plains Indians. Pictograph stories...

Students are required to critically read two poems, answer factual questions concerning the pieces, and then discuss the different uses of breath as a metaphor. They use the samples as a starting point for their own creative efforts.

Learners explore the significance of various body parts in artistic and social expression. They research a body part and create a museum installation depicting the artistic and social significance of the body part throughout history.

Students practice creating similes and metaphors together as a class. Individually students create similes and metaphors and illustrate them.

Eighth graders study personification in published works of poetry, then create their own through the use of diamante or cinquain poetry. They read and discuss poetry by Shel Silverstein, William Jay Smith, and Elinor Wylie.

Students can earn up to 50 points in Section I "C" Level. They can earn up to 10 points in Section "B" where students can complete only one activity. Students can earn a maximum of 20 points in Section "A" activities.