Students write directions for completing everyday activities.  In this writing instructions lesson students exchange their set of written directions with a partner and follow their partners directions.  If the directions are...

How do you describe a jellyfish? Individuals write adjectives for Nomura's jellyfish, take notes, and check understanding with a formative assessment. Notes include the definition for adjectives, guiding questions to help writers...

An assessment designed to examine scholars' reading comprehension skills takes place over three days. Starting with a read-aloud of My Five Senses by Aliki, learners then take notes and discuss their most memorable moments with...

A 3-day exam assesses readers' comprehension. After hearing a passage from the story Kittens First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, scholars work with a partner to discuss and sketch what they found memorable. Peers share their final products...

Living in someone's shadow would be difficult for anyone, including one of the most talented artists of the modern age. Middle schoolers read an excerpt from Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan...

Instruct your readers to scrounge through the pages of Maniac Magee in search for descriptive passages or words they may use to write poetry. As they look for meaningful, sensory descriptors in Jerry Spinelli's novel, readers...

Equip your high school writers for the rigors of timed persuasive writing by employing the preparatory ideas available in this exercise. Learners use persuasive essays, provided by the educator, to acquire how to identify persuasive...

Just like you choose your clothes to ensure they fit the occasion, you should choose your words deliberately while writing. Style, the main topic of one handout in a series on writing skills, involves choosing words carefully and paying...

Class members explore cultural diversity through a variety of texts that showcase the importance of traditions. Then, they interview their family members to research their own cultural background and write their findings on quilt...

Poetry comes in all shapes and sizes. Young writers pick a shape, select words and phrases that describe how the shape makes them feel, and create a shape poem. A raindrop example and step-by-step instructions give your...

Thomas Jefferson is one of the most recognized names and faces in America—but is there more to the third president of the United States? Upper elementary and middle schoolers conduct research on Jefferson, his famous home at Monticello,...

Put it to the test. With the cumulative resource, pupils complete the End of Unit 3 Assessment. Using everything they've learned in the unit, they write a draft of an opinion speech about how to prioritize aid after a natural...

Readers take another look at  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass to determine the purpose of the text. They use Frederick Douglass’s Purpose: Text and Questions handout and a close reading guide to direct their thinking. To...

Turn the act of following directions into a fun and engaging game! Especially designed for students with cognitive or intellectual disabilities, this instructional activity uses a game format as a natural reinforcer. Write a set of...

How do you write a number in scientific notation? The handout and video provide an explanation on how to convert from standard form into scientific notation and vice versa. The resource also contains a short discussion about choosing...

To gain insight into the many different types of habitats, individuals must first get to know their own. Here, scholars explore their school environment, draw a map, compare and contrast their surroundings to larger ones. They then...

To celebrate National Poetry Month, young writers focus on the role letter writing has played in the development of poets. They begin by journaling three to five associations to a writing prompt that requires them to identify their...

Familiarize your class with commonly used editing marks. They apply the use of editing marks to a letter and examine different types of literary tools before making a note card resource for the tools. They add their own examples for each...

Continuing from a previous lesson on how to read and analyze proposed legislation on election ballots, your class members will now practice writing up their own proposals for a new school rule or local ordinance that will be...

Use ratios to solve problems that are not proportions. The instructional activity has pupils solve multi-step ratio problems that involve fractional increases and decreases. The problems involve mark-ups, discounts, commissions, and...

Scholars read excerpts from the story, Heidi, in a three-part assessment that focuses on comparing and contrasting characters. Each part contains three tasks that challenge learners to discuss, answer comprehension...

A simple set of practice sheets deals with sentence structure and patterns. The 117-page packet includes 10 units of skills, varying from identifying parts of speech in a sentence to writing the correct part to make a sentence...

Through direct instruction, the teacher demonstrates how to identify the main idea and supporting details of a text when creating a summary. As a class, read a paragraph, highlighting relevant information and crossing out extraneous...

Cut magazine pictures into three sections, having your youngsters piece the pictures back together. With this fun activity, they discover the importance of sequencing a story. Then they use a fun template (shaped like a burger) to write...