A great ESL lesson focuses on Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims, and the Mayflower. Printable versions of the Mayflower, a Thanksgiving booklet, a Pilgrim house pattern, and links to other free sites that offer all sorts of Thanksgiving...

Discover the science behind astronomy. After reading the book Maria's Comet, which is about a young woman who breaks new ground by becoming a female astronomer, young learners practice reading comprehension with...

Here is a reading strategies lesson plan in which learners use post it notes to create a bulletin board. They post their new questions on the bulletin board and look back at questions they have already learned the answer to. A great...

Little ones sing Christmas carols, complete craft projects, and play word games while learning new vocabulary in part one of two-part ESL instructional activity series.

Similes and metaphors are the focus of a poetry lesson complete with two exercises. Scholars read poetry excerpts, underline comparative phrases, then identify whether it contains a simile or metaphor. They then write five...

What makes a cartoon political? The lesson plan provides learners with political cartoons and teaches how to analyze them using a five-step process. Scholars also complete a hands-on activity and participate in group discussions to...

Some problems are so big it takes an entire community to solve them. So was the case in the children's book Humphrey the Lost Whale: A True Story by Wendy Tokuda and Richard Hall. This primary grade lesson uses a class read-aloud of...

Bring the imaginative spark in every Dr. Seuss book to your reading lesson with a book report worksheet. After they read the story, learners write a short summary of the tale and include an illustration of their favorite character.

A colorful PowerPoint is a great way to introduce the topic of visual literacy. The eye-catching presentation begins with an overview of visual literacy and then provides some specific strategies to help enhance reading comprehension. As...

Scholars explore the animal kingdom with help from two texts, Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey and A Bed for the Winter by Karen Wallace. The literature and informational text set the learning stage for thoughtful discussion and...

Practice making inferences about fiction with a language arts slide show presentation. After kids read a few tips about ways to predict the next event in a story, they read several passages and try to find out what will happen next based...

An interactive lesson introduces readers to allusions, the literary device writers use to add depth to their work. Users record notes on the provided graphic organizer as they identify the allusions in poems by Walt Whitman, Langston...

Kindergarteners read the bold words that are unknown by using the strategies of initial sound and picture clues. They meet individually with their teacher in order to assess this concept. Excellent resource!

Discuss the difference between legitimate debate on a political issue and arguments that are based on hate through a science-fiction scenario that shows how a controversial issue can be discussed in both ways. Then learn how purveyors of...

Word problems, telling time, and reading charts all come together on this page. After reviewing a table of different travel times for a bus, a tram, a taxi, and a trolley, third graders solve word problems about arrival times and stop...

Provided here are dozens of questions to guide readers through reading all 31 chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird. Suggested answers are included. Most of the questions focus on plot recall, although some do require deeper-level...

What three readily available things would you grab in case of an emergency? That's the question that launches a unit study of William Golding's The Lord of the Flies. After sharing their choices, class members read Golding's rationale...

Pairs of contradictory words introduce learners to paradoxes, the literary device writers use to get readers thinking deeply about their messages. An interactive lesson uses poems by Emily Dickinson and Wilfred Owen and excerpts from the...

Is Sherlock Holmes an inductivist or a deductivist? Users of this interactive to distinguish between inductive and deductive reasoning. They consider in various situations whether it is better to list evidence and then introduce a claim...

Young lawyers put Goldilocks on trial as they develop an understanding of the legal system in the final instructional activity of this five-part series. After learning about key terms relating to litigation, students are assigned roles...

Can you make decisions that will impact millions of people around the nation? Scholars research the role of the Federal Reserve, and its Chairman, on the economic outlook of the country. They analyze current trends in unemployment,...

Scholars analyze the poem My Puppy Punched Me in the Eye by Ken Nesbitt in order to locate examples of alliteration and assonance. After reading the poem, alliterative words are underlined and assonant words are circled. 

"X" is for exaggeration, and "F" is for fact. To encourage close reading and to improve literary analysis skills, class members annotate fables and tall tales, like Paul Bunyan, with symbols that identify key features of this genre.

Focusing on chapters 1-4 from the book, Jump Ship to Freedom, this helpful resource outlines critical thinking questions using evidence from the text to deepen overall reading comprehension. Note: Familiarity with mindwing concepts is...