To make vocabulary words drawn from So Far from the Bamboo Grove memorable, class members select a word from the provided list and incorporate this word in a joke, story, or performance.

Explore language arts by reading two similar stories in order to compare and contrast them in class. Young readers read two Aunt Isabel books, by Kate Duke, and discuss the main characters, plot, and setting. They complete a graphic...

Your readers will “get to wanting” and will want to know things about Nightjohn with a DRTA activity based on Gary Paulsen’s novel. Introduce the book by asking class members to examine the cover and to make predictions about the subject...

Pupils solve multi-step number stories. They create number models to solve number stories.  Everyone chooses the appropriate operation to use after reading the problem, and then work in small groups to...

What does social security reveal about the political and social culture of the 1930s? After beginning with a brief introductory video on the impact of the Great Depression and how various Americans, such as Huey Long and Francis...

Fifth graders complete activities to help them sequence events in a story. In this sequencing lesson, 5th graders read a story and work in groups to retell the story by creating a flowchart of events to reconstruct. Students create their...

Foster critical thinking skills by using the DR-TA Strategy with Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Class members read portions of the essay, stop and discuss what is happening, make predictions based on evidence from the text, and...

Young performing artists create a song or choreograph a dance to illustrate a theme in a text they are reading. Step-by-step directions are included.

Dive into an exploration of the water cycle cycle with this simple earth science lesson. After first discussing where rain comes from, young scientists define the terms condensation, evaporation, transpiration,...

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution takes center stage in a instructional activity that asks class members to assume the role of state senators, debate a resolution to amend the U. S. Constitution to permit naturalized...

The transition of power between former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump may be the first political process that your students have followed. Fill out the details between these two leaders with a set of vocabulary...

Let’s learn about frogs! Young readers are led through “Freaky Frogs,” a non-fiction article. Teach learners how to edit an article so there are fewer details to sift through. After talking through the article, they learn the six steps...

The first step in managing your money is making money! Learn about ways to find and interview for a job with a thorough activity on personal finances. Kids learn about the ways to earn a paycheck and then manage the funds they receive.

How well can your class concentrate on solutions? Scholars use colorimeter absorption to explore a starch concentration calibration curve. They add iodine to different starch solutions to see how the concentration of the solution changes.

Explore poetry, personification, and multiple languages with a poetry reading and writing lesson. After the teacher reads the poem to the class, a discussion about personification follows. The class then writes a collaborative poem...

Invite your pupils to express their understanding of a novel through a collaborative video project. Groups choose a novel from those you have studied in class, select four scenes, storyboard the scenes, film the scenes, edit the film,...

A solid description of one way to teach narrative writing, this resource outlines the writing process from concept to completion. Class members create concept maps of moments in their lives and follow the writing process to publish their...

What steps did Henry "Box" Brown take while planning his own escape from slavery? Learners work in groups to analyze segments of Brown's narrative and identify the sequence of the most important events of his story.

Accuracy, phrasing, flow, and pace, the four traits of of oral reading fluency, are the focus of a series of exercises that are designed to help readers develop these comprehension and literacy skills.

Finding an expert in a given field when conducting research can be a challenge. This guide provides step-by-step directions as well as links to resources that help young sleuths find the authorities and experts they need. As a bonus, two...

Demonstrate gift giving as an act of caring about someone versus gifts for show (or gifts from the purse). Elementary learners practice giving gifts from the heart by creating a poem for someone special to them.

Help your pupils take charge of their inferring abilities with an exercise designed for direct practice with making and supporting inferences. Learners read four short passages and answer two to three questions for each passage that...

The epicenter is the point on the ground above the initial point of rupture. The 10th lesson in a series of 20 encourages scholars to learn to triangulate the epicenter of an earthquake based on the arrival times of p waves and s...

Supervise the final drafting of a well-organized paragraph by following the steps outlined in this plan. Using the included sample paragraph as a model, class members brainstorm criteria for quality work and then compose their paragraphs...