Is your city's history a mystery to your class? Ever wonder if your county contains a bounty of folklore? Young computer scientists incorporate technology with time-honored tales during a project with both individual and group...

For those class members who have mastered the basic concepts and need extra challenges, here's a packet of activities sure to engage them in stories about American immigration and exploration. Kids may design a dramatic...

A packet full of old-fashioned short stories could be a review activity for a reading comprehension lesson. Learners read 14 stories before answering multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank sentences, and vocabulary exercises.

Through a series of activities, learners are exposed to how artists use symbolic imagery to create the narrative of a subject’s life. They study The Birth of Alexander and some manuscripts kept at J. Paul Getty Museum. They then draft...

Ribbit ribbit! Hop through a series of activities based on A Tale of Two Frogs. Kids read the Russian folktale and answer reading comprehension questions before working on phonics exercises, tracing dotting lines to make a path...

What better way to explain the concept of point of view than from an ant's perspective! After reading Two Bad Ants, pupils identify the point of view of the ants by studying the text and pictures. Then, they fill out a...

The titular Matilda from Roald Dahl's famous novel adored books above all things. Discuss why it is important to read stories from across cultures and around the world using the first chapter from the ever-loved story Matilda.

Anita's iconic rooftop ode to American life in West Side Story is the focus of a lesson on immigration. As class members listen to "America," they follow along with printed lyrics, and discuss whether they agree with Anita's...

Cinderella wants to go to the ball and marry the prince. At the end of the story, she does! But how does the plot move from the exposition to the resolution? Teach language arts learners and fairy tale fans about the basics of plot...

Will Casey get a can of clover? After examining the provided writing prompt about Casey's trip to the grocery store, young writers must decide what happens next and tell their story with words and pictures.

It's no masquerade! If Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera is part of your curriculum, check out this three-page packet loaded with suggestions for before, during, and after reading activities.

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" engages adolescents with its theme about the dangers of complete societal equality. Learners complete a graphic organizer to track literary elements in the story, as well as an inference...

West Side Story, the modern retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, won ten Academy Awards for its rousing depiction of the tale of star-crossed lovers. But how closely does the plot align to its source material? Compare and...

What's the difference between story reading and story telling? Participants in a summer enrichment program learn all about the difference as they listen to famous speeches, engage in dramatic readings, and craft their own short stories...

Alabama voted to secede from the Union preceding the Civil War. What did women think of the decision? The lesson plan uses letters and newspaper articles to explain women's views on the secession and how they participated in the...

Who is telling the story? Readers take a look at the text Eight Days to determine if the story is told in first or third person. They then discuss in groups and complete a shared writing activity to describe how the narrator's point of...

Work on deciphering the point of view of various pieces of literature. As readers review the concepts of first, second, and third person perspective, they apply what they know to different passages.

Language arts is made up of many parts. Learners review the parts of a sentence, as well as how to make a simple sentence into a complex sentence, before examining full paragraphs and identifying the topic, body, and concluding sentence...

The Yukon provides plenty of opportunity for adventure. A study guide for The Call of the Wild by Jack London, also the author of White Fang, helps readers navigate the novel which is set in Yukon, Canada. Chapter summaries give a...

Body paragraphs are the building blocks of every essay. Pupils view and discuss a model essay using a rubric to evaluate one of its supporting paragraphs. Next, scholars use what they've learned to continue drafting their own literary...

The time has come to find out what your fourth grade readers have learned after another year of hard work. This Common Core-designed practice assessment provides two reading passages, one narrative and one expository, that children must...

Review concepts and terms after reading Running Out of Time. Learners each come up with a few terms that they think are important and then participate in a list-group-label exercise, paying close attention to the two main years featured...

Ask class members to reflect on their year-long writing experience by creating a portfolio of their work. Here's a resource that details what should be included in such a portfolio, and provides a rubric that can be used to assess...

Students demonstrate the interrelationships of animals and plants. In this ecology lesson, students discuss the things plants and animals need for survival and study the glacier food chain. Students simulate the web of life by using a...