After reading through Act II of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, take some time to discuss the references to death in the play. For this fishbowl discussion, learners prepare questions, practice answering individually and with...

Fifth graders write numbers in standard and expanded form.  In this writing numbers in standard and expanded form lesson, 5th graders write integers up to billions in word form and standard form.  Students use number cards to...

Students practice the strategy of reading fluently with expression with the story "Who took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?" They read and reread the story utilizing different strategies when stuck on a word. Students practice whole...

Explore the impact a narrator's point of view has on a story with a reading of the children's book, Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. Written in four different voices, the story is told and retold from different perspectives to...

Add some writing to your class's reading of Cold Sassy Tree! With this plan, readers assume the role of journalist and create a segment of a paper with their peers. Suggested segments are included, and a worksheet dividing the text into...

It's alive! Or is it? Through a series of shared readings, whole class activities, and independent exercises children explore the difference between living and non-living things, creating a pair of printable books...

Scholars participate in chants, grand discussions, and complete practice pages in a We Can Do It! themed unit. Designed to provide extra support, the assortment of lessons cover topics such as r-controlled vowels, comparatives...

A rhyming activity challenges scholars to sort picture cards according to their rhyme. Four picture cards line up across the top of a pocket chart. Learners take turns choosing from a face-down stack of picture cards and sort them...

Intended as a follow up to the Protecting Your Drinking Water activity, young environmentalists use their assessment of the a hypothetical town's water supply to debate the installation of underground chemical storage tanks. With...

Latin American culture is deeply embedded in American culture as a whole. From the Latin rock scene in San Francisco to the hip-hop world of New York, Latin American artists have influenced every genre of modern music. Learn about the...

The flu or food poisoning? Middle schoolers learn how to safely prepare, cook, clean up, and store food with a lesson that has them first read articles about food safety. Partners create a video that shows them modeling these steps and...

After sketching an essential person and reading an article, scholars read the poem "In a Neighborhood in Los Angeles" by Francisco X. Alarcón. They listen to the poem in English and Spanish and record lines that stand out to them. Small...

Introduce middle schoolers to the different strategies used when reading prose versus poetry. Groups use a Venn diagram and a poetry analysis handout to compare the characteristics of an informational text and a  poem on the same...

Pay attention! A instructional activity featuring Ada Limon's poem "Dead Stars" is designed to help learners develop their noticing skills. Class members first study the constellation Orion's image and list what they notice and how the...

Is it really that big of a deal if the global climate undergoes a little change? Young environmentalists consider this very question as they discuss in small groups the impact of different climate change scenarios on their lives,...

Forty percent of food in the US goes uneaten while 14.5 percent of US households lack a secure supply of food. As part of the preparation for a performance task assessment, groups consider statistics such as these about food waste and...

The interactions between the Coureurs de bois (runners of the woods) and the First Nation Peoples as they engaged in the fur trade are the focus on this Canadian history exercise. Kids select learning centers based on their learning...

Some words leave a lasting impact. After reading paragraph 11 of the text "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," scholars closely examine how Du Bois describes the impact prejudice left on the African American community. They discuss the...

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 instructional activity uses a...

Make a study of Charles M. Scultz's famous comic strip Peanuts in your language arts class. Class members read and discuss the baseball-themed book POW! A Peanuts Collection. After talking about themes and vocabulary, they complete...

Fake news is a hot topic right now ... but what is it? Intrepid young investigators track down the facts that separate journalistic mistakes and misinformation through reading, research, and discussion. Part three in a five-lesson series...

A lesson centers itself around the topic of family roles. A whole-class discussion uses puppets and posters to go in-depth into the following character traits; caring, responsibility, respect, and cooperation. The discussion closes with...

That's an interesting perspective. Scholars read chapter five of World without Fish and use an Author’s Point of View graphic organizer to determine the author's perspective. In triads, they highlight words that support the author's...

Set young readers on the path toward fluency with this phonemic awareness resource. Based on the award-winning children's book, Where the Wild Things Are, this lesson allows beginning readers to practice isolating...