Ensure that your learners can read both fiction and nonfiction texts with ease! This resource includes questions that individuals can ask themselves while reading either type of text to help learners comprehend the text, make...

Are your scholars interested in bugs? Get future entomologists excited about vocabulary through Joanne Oppenheim's colorful book Have You Seen Bugs? They use the informational text (although this strategy is useful for any book) to...

Get in touch with the emotional side of writing by reading Words By Heart. The writing assignment helps learners make personal connections with the text and hone their writing skills by exploring a time that they had to forgive...

Although labeled an anticipation guide, this plan is designed to be used about 22 pages into Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. A guide is provided with 10 statements. As they read each one, they mark whether or not they agree and whether...

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the best-known pieces of American literature. An eBook from the Library of Congress provides access to an early edition of the text. Original layout and illustrations are preserved within.

Is assembling the periodic table as simple as Tetris? Scholars arrange colored cards into a logical order and then make connections to the arrangement of the periodic table. Hands-on activities include adding trend arrows and analyzing...

Creative activities help bring literature alive. The first of a set of lessons designed to accompany selections from Theme 4: Problem Solvers uses activities such as skits, responses to music, and social studies projects. These...

How do we determine how much information to include and what can be left out? By playing a game of 20 questions, the class generates the best strategies for finding a number. They then move on to guessing the next letter in a short...

Visit the Magic Treehouse and take your class on a trip through time with a reading of the children's book Mummies in the Morning. Using the story to spark an investigation into Egyptian culture, this literature unit engages...

Create beautiful and simple presentations, sales pitches, lessons, and visual stories that utilize Getty Images, high quality photos licensed under Creative Commons, as well as your own prints.  What you create will demand people’s...

When astronauts get hungry in outer space, they can't just call and have a pizza delivered. In order to gain an appreciation for the challenges associated with space travel, young learners are given the task of selecting,...

As your class progresses through Chapter four of Ethan Frome, provide them with these thought-provoking questions built using Bloom's Taxonomy. 

And now for the star witness! Scholars take a look at a model newspaper article and discuss the importance of eyewitness accounts. In groups of three, they take turns underlining text from eyewitnesses. They then regroup to talk about...

Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...

Negative effects of bullying come to light through listening to the book Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. Class members identify philanthropic acts portrayed in the story and make illustrations to connect them to their own...

This pre-reading activity will certainly make your class ponder. With five questions to reflect upon, get insight to the moral dilemma Percy faced in the novel Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. 

Before diving into the engaging tale of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, conduct this directed reading and thinking activity. Assess your pupils' knowledge of Greek gods and mythology through a knowledge web,...

As a before reading strategy, class members select a tale from mythology, examine several picture book versions of the myth, and fill out part of a Venn diagram with observations about the hero in particular and the myth in...

Connect literature (Jack the Builder) with mathematical concepts. In a series of computation, geometry and number sense activities, pupils count on to add, count back to subtract, build cylinders, cones, and rectangular prisms, and name...

A whole-group discussion kicks off a hands-on activity that challenges young engineers to build a sailboat using reusable materials. Participants gather recycled items to assemble their one-of-a-kind sailboat and test its ability to...

Connecting to literature and learning how to infer are two great reading strategies everyone needs to know. Here, the class will read along with the story The Miracle of the First Poinsettia, review folktales as a genre, and make...

Model for your class members how to use a definition map to make connections between new words and prior knowledge. Although the strategy is designed for social studies classes, the approach can be use at any grade level and in any...

Students create original costumes and make-up for a puppet presentation of a scene from Shakespeare in this week long creative project. Performances of the Shakespeare scenes end this lesson geared towards state and national standards...