Students write their memoir. For this memoir lesson, students study the differences between an autobiography and a memoir. Students construct an outline as the basis for their memoir.

Small, cartoonish pictures of people expressing emotions and actions (blowing his nose, holding her head and frowning, dancing, smiling) provide the basis for writers to describe the feelings and experiences taking place. Help your ESL...

It's hard to believe the abolition movement was once seen as scandalous. Help learners understand how the US Constitution changed everything. A variety of activities such as corresponding reading activities, group work ideas, and...

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...

Introduce and challenge the essay organization skills of your junior high writers with the paper reconstruction activity in this demonstration.  Theydetermine what the word organization means, and discover the basic organizational...

An engaging lesson which has elementary learners measure weight to the nearest pound and construct and interpret a bar graph! They measure length using non-standard units and determine area using square tiles. Pupils round their birth...

The proper use of the question mark, and how to correctly construct a sentence that is a question, are the two focuses in a wonderful language arts lesson. There is a terrific interactive online game that your kids can utilize to help...

Engage in a hands-on addition and subtraction activity that is a wonderful tie-in with ocean studies. As the teacher, you will make up equations using construction paper and goldfish crackers.

Does your language arts class have a hard time with writing transitions? Use this organizational writing instructional activity to create three effective transition sentences that middle schoolers will use in their research of renewable...

Elementary schoolers explore place value to the millions place. They construct and evaluate the value of numbers. Working in small groups, pupils problem solve with pocket place value charts, and examine standard and expanded forms. This...

Strengthen your pupils' understanding of Dolch sight words with a packet of ideas. Kids can create stories, play bingo, make booklets, compose silly sentences, alphabetize, and much more.

The second lesson in a five-part poetry unit asks seventh graders to construct a metaphor poem. First, pupils examine Emily Dickinson's "The Railway Train" and identify the metaphor. They then select an object and an animal and craft a...

Have your class construct an adverb wheel. Learners brainstorm adverbs to modify the verbs they use to describe how they will eat a doughnut hole. They then use the wheel to help them write creative sentences.

A lesson plan on the holiday known as Boxing Day is here for you. In it, middle schoolers read a passage about the history of the holiday, then complete some reading comprehension worksheets embedded in the plan to reinforce what they...

The fourth standard for reading literature in the Common Core calls for young readers to be able to determine the figurative and connotative meanings of words and phrases. Use this resource, a continuation of a series of Common Core...

Test your pupils' reasoning skills with several activities and a quick mystery to solve. Learners watch and analyze a few video clips that demonstrate reasoning in action, practice deduction with an interactive and collaborative...

Sometimes summarizing keeps a writer from going deeper into their analysis—don't fall into that trap. Learn the difference between summarizing and analyzing using an insightful resource. Focusing on introductions, the lesson shares...

Want to explore the process of writing a persuasive essay and tie it in with the upcoming elections? Class members use Venn diagrams and the hamburger model of persuasive writing to write a five-paragraph essay on elections and...

Review the paleolithic and neolithic time periods using this creative lesson. After a unit on Mesopotamia and the Stone Age, learners fill out a Venn diagram comparing the paleolithic and neolithic period, and write a paragraph...

Choosing a poet or a theme, eighth graders conduct research in the world of poetry. They conduct Internet research and select five poems that fit their poet or theme, and create a seven slide PowerPoint presentation on their selected...

Elementary schoolers view and study ten pictures of the location of a ball adjacent to a box. They decide where the ball is and match it to its appropriate preposition on the right. A good language arts lesson!

Students explore the Underground Railroad communication system.  In this cross curriculum fine arts and United States history Civil War lesson, students view several websites that feature quilts constructed by slaves during the...

Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...

Transition words in writing are the focus of the language arts lesson presented here. In it, learners cut out the word-sort cards (embedded in the plan), and put them into four categories: time, examples, space, and summary. They find a...