Curated OER
Venn Diagrams With the Pain And the Great One
Students read the story, The Pain and the Great One, written by Judy Blume, and discuss the characters and the sequence of events. They compare/contrast the two main characters using Venn diagrams.
Curated OER
Floppy And the Puppies
Fifth graders reinforce and focus on the meaning derived from the text as a whole and identify and describe the main characters, events and settings in a fiction piece of writing. They incorporate a wide-range of adventurous vocabulary...
Curated OER
Can You Stretch the Truth?
Students study folk tales. They write a class folk tale and then one of their own using a famous character or known celebrity as their main character. They put on a class play of one of the student's folk tales.
Curated OER
Creature Creation
Second graders listen to a read aloud of a fictional story about a frog. They compare the characteristics of the main character with a real frog. They work with two partners to create a creature; one student draw the head, one the body,...
Curated OER
Tell Me a Whopper!
Sixth graders investigate tall tales as a literary genre. They listen to a number of tall tales to discover how exaggeration is used as a story element. They write and publish a tall tale using word processing software. They illustrate...
Curated OER
Seeing The Picture
Students practice visualizing elements from a poem or story. While reading the poem "Snowball," the instructor models what they see when they read the passage. Students draw a picture of the main character of the poem "Danny O'Dare"...
Curated OER
Finding My Hat
Sixth graders explore the Korean culture through the book, Finding My Hat. They read and discuss the book in literature circles and write in response journals after each chapter. Comparing the main character to themselves, they note the...
Curated OER
Blackwater by Conn Iggulden
Young scholars read, analyze, critique and discuss the novel, "Blackwater," by Conn Iggulden. They brainstorm and evaluate what's in a name, follow the clues to solving the mystery and explore what happened next to the main character...
Curated OER
Morning Girl
Fifth graders read the novel "Morning Girl" by Michael Dorris. Using the text, they compare and contrast the two cultures, Arawak and Taino in the novel and research the landing of Columbus in San Salvador. They create a family tree...
Curated OER
Hatchet: A 4th Grade Literacy Focus Unit
Fourth graders discuss the story "Hatchet" after the story is read. In this literacy instructional activity, 4th graders explore various habitats researching the characteristics about each, complete a Venn Diagram comparing their habitat...
Curated OER
Stone Fox Plot Frame
Fifth graders recall the major plot points of a chapter book. After reading the chapter book "Stone Fox," they students describe the plot framework through use of a worksheet. Students are then divided into group to act out selected...
Curated OER
Literature Circles
Fourth graders work in groups in order to motivate one another to develop reading comprehension and literacy skills. The skills are built through the sharing of fine literature. They maintain a reading log to keep accountable for the...
Curated OER
Creating Life Maps (Elementary, Reading/Writing)
Students create a personal life timeline to better explain how a historical timeline is effective in studying history. They also write a poem about themselves.
Curated OER
Movie Cloze
In this movie worksheet, students fill in the blanks to sentences with movie vocabulary. Students fill in the blanks for 24 sentences about movies.
Curated OER
Nonfiction Genre Mini-Unit: Persuasive Writing
Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.
ReadMagazine
Nineteen Eight-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a perfect text for an age of fake news and alternative facts. And what better way to introduce a new generation of readers to George Orwell's dystopian classic than with a reader's theatre version of the tale. The...
EngageNY
Building Background Knowledge About Physical Environment: What Makes it Hard for Some People to Get Books?
How far would your pupils go to be able to have access to books? Revisit Heather Henson and David Small's That Book Woman and challenge class members to take on the role of Cal or the Book Woman. By putting themselves in someone else's...
Novelinks
The Tempest: A-Z Book Project
Create a picture dictionary for one of William Shakespeare's most famous plays. After readers finish The Tempest, they assign each letter of the alphabet to a concept or character, and add a description and evidence from...
Curriculum Corner
8th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists
How close are your eighth graders to mastering the ELA Common Core standards? Keep an eye on progress with these charts, which include every eighth grade identifier and full standard text. As you move through the year and teach,...
K12 Reader
Change the Point of View: First Person and Third Person
How is a story different when told from various points of view? Learn about first and third person points of view with an activity based on Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Readers examine a passage written in first person,...
Curated OER
Create a Playbill!
Seventh graders explore the various elements found in the advertisement of a dramatic experience. Playbills are created that reflect the plot without revealing the climax of the play. Costumes, set construction, and character description...
Novelinks
The Good Earth: Concept Analysis
Designed for teachers, this resource provides an overview of Pearl S. Buck's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Good Earth. Information about the organizational pattern of the story, issues and themes addressed, historical background on...
Bierbaum Elementary School
Practicing Patience
As teachers, we have a lot of patience. Our scholars, on the other hand, may need some support. Give your pupils the emotional intelligence instruction they desire with a lesson designed to teach patience through grand conversation,...
Curated OER
Hatchet: Concept Analysis
Take an in-depth look into Gary Paulsen's Hatchet with a concept guide. With a list and explanation of thematic motifs, types of conflicts, and vocabulary in the novel, learners will engage with the text in a whole new way.