Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Benjamin Franklin and Learning a Lesson
Examine stories with a moral in a character development instructional activity. The class reads a short story written by Benjamin Franklin in which he pays too much for a toy whistle. Individuals then make text-to-self connections and...
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Vocabulary Development
What is a root word? What is a prefix? Suffix? Use these questions to spark a discussion amongst your language art learners. Then, start by writing the word irresistible on the board and have teams of learners attempt to create new words...
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The Little Engine that Could Mini Unit Plan
The best part about teaching little ones is setting up fun, thematic learning stations. Here is a full day of activities that all relate to the story, The Little Engine that Could. Included are six different activities that cover art,...
Bantam Books
The Tempest: Four Corners
Forgiveness can be a difficult step to take in any circumstance, but is it more difficult if the offense is more egregious? High schoolers consider the concept of forgiveness before reading William Shakespeare's The Tempest. As kids read...
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Reading Partners
Students participate in several activities using a reading partner. They plan and organize reading meetings with their partner, and then review story elements by retelling the stories orally. The partners question each other and make...
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Thumbs Up For Expert Readers!
Students use the cross check strategy to increase reading comprehension in this lesson. They listen as the teacher reads "Where the Wild Things Are." The teacher purposely reads some words wrong so that the story does not make sense. ...
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Hoot: List-Group-Label
Word association is a great way to explore vocabulary and new ideas. In a unit about Carl Hiassen's Hoot, kids think about the word environmentalist and come up with additional words that they associate with environmentalism on sticky...
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Guided Imagery: Preparation for Chapter 5 of The Catcher in the Rye
A guided imagery exercise about a favorite person prepares class members for the introduction of Holden Caulfield's brother, in chapter five of J.D. Salinger's famous novel. This focus on Allie emphasizes for readers his importance to...
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Child Literacy
Young scholars read information on the importance of literacy and complete a worksheet. In this community service instructional activity, students evaluate children's literature and practice reading fluency. Young scholars spend two...
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It's Your Opinion
Everyone has a different opinion about the characters they read about in books. Have your class explore forming an opinion and finding evidence to support it as they read and discuss what they think about a particular character. They...
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Teaching Strategies For Main Idea Lessons
Main Idea Lesson Plans can help teachers make identifying the main idea of a passage a breeze.
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Cloze Instruction And Herringbone Technique
Students sort out important information and create a visual framework for reviewing in the future. They organize a large quantity of information thus helping with learning and remembering details, cause and effect, comparison and...
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Prewriting, Using Pictures
Young readers practice getting information from both the text and the illustrations found in books they are reading. They see that quite often, authors use pictures to help them get their writing process started. Youngsters are invited...
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Inferences/Opinions
Fourth graders practice making inferences and forming opinions. In this reading strategy lesson, 4th graders listen to the book Woodsong by Gary Pauisen. They make predictions about the story before beginning and discuss the story as...
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Identifying Themes in Children's Literature
Identifying themes in literature is the focus of the language arts lesson plan presented here. Learners read short pieces of fiction and practice the skill of identifying the themes present in each one. The bulk of the lesson consists of...
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Missing May
Pupils listen to the first couple chapters in the book, Missing May by Cynthia Rylant and then sketch or write about a character or the setting, using words and phrases from the book as guides. They then discuss the chapters using the...
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Figurative Language and Symbolism
High schoolers identify figurative language and symbolism in poetry as well as prose. For this literary elements lesson, students read and discuss the role of symbolism in Yellow Man by Moonlight, A Christmas Carl, The House of Wings,...
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Science Questions
Explore the concept of generating questions. Your curious learners choose a scientific question from a bowl and, as they listen to an article being read, they use that question starter to come up with their own questions. Then, they have...
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Students complete activities for the autobiography of Maya Angelou. In this autobiography instructional activity, students write a journal entry about their life and discuss the morphology of the word autobiography. Students use active...
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Graphic Organizers Aid Comprehension
Students create story webs to aid comprehension of ecosystems. In this reading strategies lesson, students discover the importance of organizing information while reading a nonfiction text. Students produce story webs to communicate...
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Is this the right book for me?
Sixth graders recognize strategies for selecting nonfiction texts. In this book selection lesson, 6th graders practice procedures for knowing if the book is just right for them. Students select from a variety of texts and share their...
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Introduce Vocabulary: A Picture Book of Helen Keller (Adler)
The story of Helen Keller is a fascinating one for young scholars; use it to practice reading comprehension and new vocabulary as learners listen to you read David Adler's picture book (hint: this strategy can be applied to any book)....
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Introduce Vocabulary: How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? (Yolen and Teague)
If you are reading Jane Yolen's fun story How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, use these strategies to enhance the experience for budding readers. What new words will they learn? Find detailed comprehension questions for these in-text words:...
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Introduce: Main Idea
Begin exploring main idea in a text by telling the class an interesting story. Can they recall the main idea after you finish? What clues told them this was it? Explain that you will apply this concept as you read a nonfiction book....