Scholastic
Reading Success Mini Books: Word Families
Engage children in learning about rhyming words with this printable book on the -ing word family. Including six words with supporting pictures, young learners practice reading and writing the words before adding their own word and...
Curated OER
Implementing Reader's Workshop in the Primary Classroom
Basic guidelines and lesson ideas for introducing this reading strategy.
Curated OER
English Lesson Plan on National Grammar Day
Aid your English langauge learners with this series of grammar activities. In this National Grammar Day worksheet, learners read a passage about the importance of the day and complete a variety of different activities involving this...
Scholastic
Quick as a Cricket Lesson Plan
Teaching young learners about similes is easy as pie with this primary grade language arts lesson. Following a class reading of the children's book, Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, young readers learn the definition of a simile as...
Curated OER
Teacher Kit Unit 1
Nine lessons makeup a unit designed to reinforce grammar and vocabulary through practice pages based on readings of African folktales. Each lesson consists of a mini lesson, a vocabulary review, and a worksheet. Topics include...
Teacher's Corner
Hey Batter, Wake Up!
Does jet lag affect a baseball team's performance in games? Read about how a baseball team's chance of winning a game can be affected by traveling over one, two, and three time zones. Readers then respond to five short answer questions...
Curated OER
Etymology: A Mini-Lesson on Teaching a Word's History
As you're reading The Hobbit with your class, show them the etymology of the word attercop. This presentation would benefit with some additional examples or with a practice slide that offers a list of words from the book that pupils must...
Curated OER
Theme
A study of Rudyard Kipling's poem, "If," launches a lesson about theme. Class members read Kipling's poem and poems by other seventh graders to identify the themes.
EngageNY
Rereading and Close Reading: Communism, “The Vietnam Wars,” and “Last Respects” (Pages 85 and 86)
What might a papaya symbolize? Using the resource, scholars look for examples of symbolism in the novel Inside Out & Back Again. They also participate in a silent discussion called a Chalk Talk, writing their responses to a...
ReadWriteThink
Comics in the Classroom as an Introduction to Narrative Structure
A picture is worth a thousand words, but a comic strip combines both images and words for the ultimate narrative effect. After reading The Three Little Pigs and deciphering the plot elements, elementary readers work through four...
Weebly
Author Study: Eric Carle
Dive into an author study of one of the most beloved children’s book authors, Eric Carle. After reading some of his stories, including Papa Get me the Moon, A House for Hermit Crab, The Grouchy Ladybug, and The Very Busy Spider, readers...
Learning for Justice
Mary Church Terrell
Excerpts from an 1898 speech by civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell offers young scholars an opportunity to investigate how Black American women fought for civil rights long before Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement of the...
EngageNY
Bringing Douglass’s Words to Life: The Fight with Covey
Readers have the opportunity to bring the words from an excerpt of Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass to life. They use strategies from the Storyteller’s
Toolbox anchor chart as a guide and then work in pairs to prepare their...
EngageNY
Building Writing Skills: Receiving Feedback and Varying Sentence Structures
Everyone is good at something. Scholars receive their mid-unit assessments with feedback. They look over their papers and write their strengths as a writer and goals on index cards. The class then has a mini lesson in using sentence...
Curated OER
Jim Murphy, The Great Fire - Grade 6
The Great Fire by Jim Murphy provides the text for a study of the Chicago fire of 1871. The plan is designed as a close reading activity so that all learners have the same background information require for writing. Richly detailed, the...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 17: Novel, Take 2
It's all about using peer resources in this writing process lesson plan, which includes a fantastic novel revision worksheet packet. Learners have read a partner's story draft the night before, and groups have a "lightning round of...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 11: Beginnings
Every good novel needs a solid beginning! Setting the stage can have your budding authors stumped, so use this lesson to get them thinking. After examining the plot rollercoaster image (included) they consider the four places their story...
Curated OER
Finding the Main Idea: Little Women
Whether or not your class is reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, you can use this exercise as the basis of a mini-lesson on how to determine the main idea of a passage or as a pre-test to assess mastery of the skill. A graphic...
Curated OER
Chrysanthemum - Read Aloud
First graders participate in active read aloud of Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. In this read aloud instructional activity set, 1st graders practice the "turn and talk" technique as they listen to Chrysanthemum. They listen to the story...
California Education Partners
Tuck Everlasting
An assessment takes a close look at the story, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, and tests writing abilities. Over the course of two days, scholars read an excerpt, answer questions on a worksheet pertaining to the author's purpose...
California Education Partners
Telescopes
An assessment challenges scholars to read an informative text then respond with an explanatory essay. The exam begins as participants read a text passage twice then take notes, making sure to jot down key details. Following the...
California Education Partners
Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
A 3-day exam assesses readers' comprehension. After hearing a passage from the story Kittens First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, scholars work with a partner to discuss and sketch what they found memorable. Peers share their final products...
Curated OER
Details: Writer's Workshop Mini-Lesson
Students read the story I Know a Lady by Charlotte Zolotow. They discuss the details from the story. Students draw an illustration of what they expect their Thanksgiving dinner table will look like. They list details that describe their...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Exploring Text with the iMovie Application
Get your class going on one of the final assessments for a unit on short stories by introducing iMovie and its main features. In this tenth instructional activity in a series of fourteen, pupils take some time to explore iMovie before...