Dating in America is the subject of a focused listening exercised that could be used with language learners as well as native English speakers. The richly detailed packet includes a writing assignment, supplemental exercises, vocabulary...

Improve your learners' reading and writing skills with a set of sentences designed to help pupils work with sight words. The teacher dictates while the pupils write; this is followed by discussion.          ...

How can you tell if a number of items is reasonable? Combine math and language arts with a fun lesson based on Jeff Shepard's The Right Number of Elephants. After reading the book, kids discuss amounts of other items and create...

Consider the causes and effects that led to the internment and relocation of Japanese Americans during WWII. Learners read the story "Baseball Saved Us" and selected chapters from Farewell to Manzanar. Then, they view a slide-show, and...

Give young scholars a chance to practice making inferences after reading the book Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges. They confirm whether or not their conclusions are true, have a class discussion, and then independently complete an...

Introduce your learners to the concept of a double-entry journal. Talk about how to connect with the text and model an example for them. Using whatever literature you are working with, have scholars choose a quote and make their own...

Growing writers explore what it takes to develop and support a thesis statement with pre-fabricated ideas provided by the Virginia Department of Education. Learners take notes on what makes a thesis statement and a topic sentence, and...

Did the United States Constitution uphold the institution of slavery, or did it help to destroy it? Young historians study Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution and evaluate the rights of slaveowners as they compared to...

The Great Gatsby, The Jungle and study HRC's Teaching the American Twenties-The Dream Factory are the focus of this lesson, Your students will rewrite a small scene from the novel into a dramatic film scene and then create a modern...

Students experience and study how to utilize the alphabet and letter sounds to create an alphabet PowerPoint Presentation. They prepare each slide with a letter of the alphabet, a sentence expressing that letter and the sound that...

Develop a world-wide, email chain on which class members can showcase their acts of kindness. After defining the meaning of random acts of kindness through discussion and through a reading of Random Acts of Kindness,...

Students gather statistics to include in their research. In this statistics activity, students investigate how to incorporate statistics into research and other readings besides math. They collect data based on other topics, analyze the...

Students investigate the bread baking process through the use of literature. In this reading comprehension instructional activity, students read the book, The Little Red Hen and discuss the steps the hen followed to bake bread. Students...

Get your kinesthetic learners engaged in a vocabulary study using Karen Pandell's book, Animal Action ABC. They move around as you read, and raise their hands whenever they hear one of the words you are learning. Pre-teach the...

Give beginning readers a chance to practice with unknown words and context clues using the pictuer book Annabelle Swift, Kindergartner. Choose several vocabulary words to focus on as you read the picture book, or use the ones provided...

Robots and their interactions with their human counterparts are the catalyst for a fun writing instructional activity. First, the class brainstorms what they'd like to have their personal robot do or be capable of. Then, they each write...

Guide your kindergartners to create memorable, colorful number lines that they will use throughout the school year. Using sentence strip and a black marker or card stock printed in a teachers font, create traceable numbers from 1 to 20...

Did the Emancipation Proclamation free all slaves during the Civil War? Why was it written, and what were its immediate and long-term effects? After reading primary source materials, constructing political maps representing information...

Really? Rapping The Odyssey? Really. A discussion of the oral tradition of story telling and its links to Epic poetry sets the stage for a series of activities that encourage improvisation to integrate music into other classrooms....

Should countries use their militaries to stop humanitarian crises in other countries? Learners make claims, organize their reasoning, and provide evidence for their arguments with this rich resource.

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

Writing a summary is much easier once you've laid out the sequence of events. Show readers how these two skills are intertwined using this graphic organizer. Review the meaning of sequencing first, presenting the chart and possibly...

Amigo by Byrd Baylor gives learners a chance to practice with unknown words and context clues. Choose several vocabulary words to focus on as you read the picture book, or use the ones provided here (the book is in English...

In this creative writing instructional activity, pupils listen to the song "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More", read the book adaptation titled I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!, and pay close attention to the rhyming scheme, punctuation and...