Supporting characters need detail and characteristics just like a main character. Keep your budding authors entrenched in detail as they write their novels. This lesson focuses on developing supporting characters using personal...

East Egg, West Egg, the Valley of Ashes, and the green light. Bring Gatsby, the Jazz Age, and the American Dream to your classroom with a resource designed for teachers. Included in the treasury are six great teaching ideas for F. Scott...

Following the reading of the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, the ninth lesson plan in this unit involves emerging experts in a science talk about how bullfrogs survive. Looking back through the text, young scholars prepare for the...

As a summative assessment for this unit on colonial trade, fourth graders listen to and read informational texts in order to demonstrate their ability to take notes, write summaries, and draw connections. Young scholars first listen as...

Even though readers investigate matters of the heart, this activity promotes the inner workings of learners' brains. The fifth lesson of six has the teacher first model the strategy to the class before having small groups practice. To...

Here's an amazing writing guide that deserves a place in your curriculum library. The 136-page packet provides focus lessons on the writing process, expository, persuasive, and timed writing, the Cornell system of note taking, and...

Imagine a year-long writing plan aligned to Common Core standards. Here it is! This resource packet, the first in the series of units, introduces the plan, provides an overview of the research-based approach, and a...

Students analyze a case study. For this child development lesson, students read case studies on children who are isolated and their development. Students break into groups, read the case study, and summarize their thoughts. Students then...

Read Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomi De Paola then participate in different activities which practice skills such as English language development, using non-standard measurement, fine motor skills, dramatic play, and using our five senses.

Learners examine the procedures that writers utilize to obtain and develop ideas for writing. Journal writing is fostered as a primary step in the writing process. Learners are encouraged to pay careful attention to using complete...

Students examine both sides of arguments surrounding given debates. They use the internet and other research to collect information to support their stand on the controversial issue. Students debate their chosen topic. This lesson plans...

Get your class going on one of the final assessments for a unit on short stories by introducing iMovie and its main features. In this tenth lesson in a series of fourteen, pupils take some time to explore iMovie before conducting an...

Write an unsent letter about a consumer scam, paying attention to the writing conventions of punctuation and spelling. This instructional activity could be adapted to fit a variety of social issues in which letter writing is appropriate. 4

Have your middle schoolers define the terms outline, summary, paraphrase, plagiarism, citation, reference, and bibliography. They identify the main ideas, topic sentence, supporting ideas in technical writing and create note cards using...

Young scholars use songs to analyze their sense of identity and self-worth. In groups, they discuss and explore their own character development and discover how far they have come in recent years. They also identify the positive and...

What is the main idea? Previewing a text is a great way to identify the main idea without even reading, but what areas of a text do you preview? Teach your third, fourth, and fifth graders the most important areas to preview before...

Sixth graders explore adversity. In this summarizing lesson students compare their culture to the Hispanic culture. Students reflect on a time they were met with adversity. Students summarize Chapter 1 of Esperanza Rising.

This lesson focusing on classifying vocabulary words as concrete, abstract, or content specific could best be used with older students and adults. A list of words and the classification chart is provided.

Cover can, may, will, and shall with this lesson on using modals in the present tense. Starting off with a warm-up activity, the resource includes a text to analyze, examples of modals, and exercises with answers. The language in the...

Is your Kindergarten class about to read the book, Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom? If they are, and you want a few wonderful activity ideas to reinforce phonemic awareness and letter identification skills, look no further. Here you'll find over...

Students research, using a variety of sources, a topic that has been previously chosen. They evaluate their information for the value, relevance, and accuracy. Students identify problems in their research and writing to get assistance as...

Combine your friendly letter lesson, grammar lesson, and technology lesson with this fun activity! Young writers compose letters to friends, and then convert the text to Webdings font. Their friends then decode the letter based on a key....

Use fables as a fun way for English Language Learners to gain confidence and fluency in their reading and speaking skills. After reading a fable in class, they retell their story to a group of their peers. When this jigsaw activity is...

Here is a quick and easy guide to help a new teacher build phonics lessons for students with dyslexia. It stresses the importance of fundamental basics while also providing clear and direct instructional practices that will help you...