Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: Clap Your Hands
Read Clap Your Hands to explore new vocabulary with your class. In this three-tiered vocabulary instructional activity, youngsters read the book and identify the plot, setting, and characters. They also define vocabulary terms from...
Curated OER
Autobiography - Student Trading Cards
Motivate your class with this lesson! Learners use the trading card format to create an autobiography. They are given a list of characteristics to list, write down what they would like to include on their trading card, and head to the...
Curated OER
Story Map for Bud, Not Buddy
Why should your class complete a story map? After reading Bud, Not Buddy, divide your class into pairs or small groups to complete the included worksheet. They list the main characters, the conflict, main plot events, the resolution, and...
Curated OER
Walk Two Moons: DR-TA, Chapter 17: “In the Course of a Lifetime”
Use this question and answer worksheet as an assignment for Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons. The questions listed support better comprehension and critical thinking of chapter seventeen.
Virginia Department of Education
Elaborating with Showing, Not Telling
This engaging activity is a great change of pace for the classroom. The activity starts with a simple message on the board “The teacher is angry.” The instructor is to stomp around, drop books and glare—anything to show anger. The...
Appalachian State University
What Are Graphic Novels?
To do this engaging and pleasurable activity, your learners should have already read a graphic novel, and produced a piece of writing that can be reproduced into the format of a graphic novel. This exercise provides a script that...
Curated OER
Understanding a Narrative: The True Story of Balto
Strong comprehension questions and a list of initiating events that drive the plot make this resource worth a try in your classroom. Intended for use with tools specific to the mindwing concepts reading strategy system, the outline...
Study Champs
Nouns
Plural, proper, and common nouns are all included here. After reviewing the definition of a noun and reading an example sentence, learners underline the nouns in each of 15 sentences. Each sentence lists how many nouns are present, so...
Education Center
Safety Sequence
Follow up a class reading of the children's book Officer Buckle and Gloria with this simple sequence-of-events worksheet. Including pictures of six key moments from the story, young learners must first number them in the correct...
Learning Links
The Josefina Story Quilt Study Guide
Considering using The Josefina Story Quilt in your classroom? Check out this sample teaching guide for a list of pre-reading activities.
Curated OER
Help Me Learn About the Holocaust
Young readers select a book from a provided list to use as the basis for an intensive class study of Holocaust novels. After completing their novels, groups create a multimedia presentation highlighting the elements of literature...
Virginia Department of Education
Researching and Narrowing Topics
Internet research is becoming more common, so why not conduct an online research project in your classroom? Use this resource to get you and your class started. The lesson includes basic instructions and a list of questions to help...
Curated OER
How to Write an Essay: Secondary ed.
Whether introducing the structure of expository essays or reviewing the format with your high schoolers, take the time to check out this resource. Examples of seven common forms of introductory paragraphs and six types of conclusions, as...
Curated OER
Icky Insect Is In Icky Sticky Ink
Practice the strategy of letter-sound correspondence when identifying the short vowel /i/ sound in written and spoken words. The teacher recites the tongue twister "Icky insect is in icky sticky ink," while listeners repeat. Letter boxes...
Curated OER
Hop on the Express Train to Read Expressively
Encourage beginning readers to read expressively. After the teacher models what it's like to read with expression, pairs of learners work together to practice developing this ability. While one learner reads, the other marks a check-list...
Curated OER
Odd Word Out
In this word association worksheet, students view a large list of words and choose which ones are different as well as why they are different.
Curated OER
More Joy of Abstract Nouns 1
Students are provided with a list of 20 adjectives that they must generate abstract nouns to match. For example, the first term, luxurious, would prompt the answer luxury. Directions for this activity explain that abstract nouns don't...
Curated OER
More Joy of Abstract Nouns 2
Continue your classes' study of related vocabulary with a second list of adjectives that have corresponding abstract nouns. Students must fill in the missing abstract noun for each provided adjective. For example, satisfying (satisfied)....
Curated OER
Total English Elementary: The Best Thing is...
Given two nouns separated by an adjective, learners create eight sentences using the adjective in comparative form. Example: Jamaica/hot/UK, which becomes Jamaica is hotter than the UK. They then write the superlative form of eight...
Curated OER
The Setting of Any Fairy Tale
Focus on setting using this activity. Learners read a fairy tale and identify the setting for the story. They also list adjectives to describe it. In addition, they draw a picture describing the setting.
Curated OER
This Was the Noblest Roman of Them All
High schoolers analyze the problems with staging and character using the play Julius Caesar. They summarize the final scene of the play and view film versions of the scene. Additionally, they prepare a promptbook for the final scene and...
Curated OER
Present Perfect or Past Simple Tense?
Does the sentence require the present perfect or the past simple tense? Meant to be an online resource, you could easily print this to complete in the classroom. Learners fill in each blank with the correct tense. Ten questions are...
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: Peter's Chair (Keats)
A new baby means a lot of changes for Peter! Ezra Jack Keats presents this common childhood experience in his story Peter's Chair, the context of a detailed vocabulary study. Before you read, introduce the three new words scholars...
Curated OER
Tom Sawyer Questions: Chapters 1-13
Reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer? Give your class a list of reading questions to guide their reading. Questions are divided into seven sections according to the chapters they accompany.