Young learners explore nutrition and the food groups in these two mini-lesson plan ideas. First, kindergarteners have a discussion about their health and how different foods contribute to it before making their own personal food pyramid....

How many people and animals can cram into a single bed? Find out with this cross-curricular math and language arts lesson. Following along with a reading of the children's book The Napping House by Audrey Wood, young mathematicians...

To allude, or not to allude, that is the question: whether ‘tis better to make a reference and engage your audience or risk confusing them or sounding dated. After reading an article about, and loaded with allusions, class members take a...

Use the Peace Corps to explore a different place and different perspectives. Your class reads the personal narrative "Cross-Cultural Dialogue" by Roz Wollmering, completing an attached story frame sheet in preparation for a class...

Considering using The Josefina Story Quilt in your classroom? Check out this sample teaching guide for a list of pre-reading activities.

What words would you use to describe Mr. Darcy? What about Elizabeth? Use vivid vocabulary to create lists of adjectives to describe the characters of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. After kids come up with their own lists of...

Students share their all-time favorite books with peers. They read and discuss the article Notable Children's Books of 2007. Afterward, they create book webs and compose reviews based on their book selections.

Third graders view the food Power Tower and discuss the food groups.  In this food lesson, 3rd graders cut out favorite foods from magazines.  Students read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and record the foods they would miss...

First graders read a book with the teacher while encountering unfamiliar words and learning how to use context clues and visual clues to understand the material.  For this reading comprehension lesson, 1st graders...

Students read and respond to the text, Mama Went to Jail for the Vote. In this literary response lesson, students are introduced to vocabulary terms and read the book. Students discuss various text-to-self connections they made to the book.

Students discuss dreams and they types of dreams they have. They read the book "Dinosaur Dream" by Dennis Nolan and discuss the characters and events in the book. They look up vocabulary words and create a collage utilizing as many...

Where is Henry Huggins? Class members craft playing cards for a memory game. One side features a description or an illustration of a memorable scene, the title of the book and the names of major characters, or a description about...

A thorough lesson plan takes your first grade class through Jane Yolen's beautiful Owl Moon. It crafts the unit with clear objectives, high-level guiding questions, cloze activities and sentence frames, and extension...

In lab groups, young scientists place aluminum cans with a bubble-solution cap into different temperatures of water to see what size of bubble dome forms. As part of an atmosphere unit in preparation for learning about convection...

A novel study examines The Science of Breakable Things by Tae Keller. Fifth graders participate in daily readings, discussions, and assignments following an "ask, explore, imagine, observe, and understand" routine. A final performance...

What is identity? What is bullying? What is identity-based bullying? After discussing these questions as a class, pupils engage in partner discussions before participating in a small group activity to act out bullying scenarios. Then,...

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...

It's no myth: this packet on Greek mythology is an excellent addition to your social studies curriculum. With writing activities, such as short answer responses and biopoems, and reading activities, which include creation stories and...

Follow this lesson, which is written more like a script, to practice reading a poem with your class. Pupils read "The Road Not Taken" and respond to five multiple choice questions on a provided worksheet. The plan leads you through a...

Use picture cues as a tool in order to create meaning along with text. With a wordless comic, young illustrators discuss the main idea and character traits, and independently write a summary for a page of a wordless comic. This strategy...

Vladek's attitudes are difficult for many young learners to understand. Prepare your class for the events represented in Art Speigelman's graphic novel with a pre-reading activity that has them read articles about and interviews with...

Break down the parts of argumentative writing with a critical thinking activity. High schoolers read an article of your (or their choice), and use a graphic organizer to delineate the ways the author structures his or her arguments.

Conduct a book study of the story, My Dream of Martin Luther King by Faith Ringgold. Followng a read-aloud, scholars take part in philosophical discussions covering the topics of freedom, equality, race, and heroes. 

In order to truly understand The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, you'll need to provide middle schoolers with background information about the Holocaust. After contributing as many words as they can associate with the Holocaust, such as...