If you found five hundred dollars in the park, would you keep it or turn it in? Exercise both reading comprehension skills and philosophic beliefs in a language arts reading activity about three boys who stumble upon a small fortune...

Ready for an educational movie day? Use a resource based on the movie Whale Rider to learn more about the Maori culture. Class members answer a variety of questions and listen to music from the soundtrack to further analyze and...

Learners listen to the story Jeffrey and the Sloth and relate the story to how it feels to have writer's block. In this Jeffrey and the Sloth activity, students use this book to inspire their creative writing process. Learners create...

Third graders collect and analyze data about food chains. They conduct Internet research about the habitat of a selected organism, write a narrative, and create a computer slideshow using Kid Pix computer software that illustrates the...

Students examine natural disasters and some safety measures that should be followed.  In this natural disaster lesson plan students write a narrative, and research safety procedures.

Students determine how animals and people adapt to the desert environment. In this desert lesson plan, students review vocabulary about the desert and how humans have to make changes to accommodate their environments. They listen to and...

In this writing worksheet, students write an original acrostic poem about the month of October. Students begin each line with a word or phrase that starts with the letter on that line.

Students read and discuss a film review of the animated movie Antz and then write a monologue from the perspective of a non-human organism.

In this literature activity, students write an original acrostic poem about the month of August. Students begin each line with a word or phrase that starts with the letter on each line.

Fifth graders discuss feelings and depression and brainstorm ways to seek help. In this health lesson, the teacher leads a discussion about emotions focusing on when emotions are balanced and when they become unbalanced and a person can...

A reading of Panic in Paris launches a review of the elements of narrative writing. Class members work in groups to find narrative devices in the book and record their findings on a provided worksheet. Using the completed pages,...

Teach your class the basics of narrative writing! The resource first describes the Common Core standard for narrative writing in-depth, and then moves into how to apply the standard. Show your class the example essay and quiz them...

Time for a story! Learners of all ages enjoy listening to stories, so read them some common fables and have them work cooperatively to create a fable.  Differentiate for varying ability levels by providing sentence frames, graphic...

Delve into narrative writing that puts choice in the hands of the writers. Kids pick their own characters, emotions, items, and places from a list and tie them together in the exposition. Several questions help guide the writers toward...

Have your class explore Buddhist Jataka Tales to compare and contrast them to European fables. After defining fables, Jataka tales, and the elements of each, learners identify themes and patterns for both types of narratives and the...

Study historical events by combining the study of historical fiction and non-fiction. Learners read about true past events in historical fiction novels and then research non-fiction accounts of the same events. What are some differences...

An excerpt from Willa Cather's O Pioneer's! provides learners with practice in finding the main idea and supporting details in a narrative. As readers record the bleak details on the included graphic organizer, they can conclude that...

Why didn't Rapunzel's hair stop growing?  Why did it take the fairy godmother so long to intervene in Cinderella's affairs? Young writers consider unanswered questions like these and compose news articles investigating the true...

Story chains connect literary concepts, reinforce context clues, and even help learners predict what's coming next! Using words from the next chapter of Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons, middle schoolers craft story chains to...

Do talk back! The transcript of one side of a telephone conversation launches a study of dialogue. Class members imagine the response of the speaker on the other side of the conversation and record these responses on the provided...

Inform your elementary scientists why we experience day and night. They are provided with facts and explanation as to why the day and night cycle occur, discuss what they've learned with a partner, and are then given the task of writing...

Poetry isn't all sonnets and rhyming couplets! Introduce your class to three fun types of poetry: shape poems, acrostic poems, and diamante poems. Each type is explained, and an example is provided. Challenge your class to write one in...

Young writers get a jump start on story telling by selecting a plot, a setting, and multiple character cards and then use these basic elements to create a tale.

Heart of Darkness can challenge even the best readers. Here's a pre-reading strategy that will engage class members and provide background and context for Conrad's study of racism, savagery and imperialism. Class members brainstorm,...