Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell's classic tale of Karana, a young girl stranded on an island off the California coast, is the focus of a 16-slide presentation that includes a list of vocabulary words, guided reading questions,...

Contemplate what music learners listen to and why they listen. Can they find poetry within music lyrics? Specifically hone in on blues lyrics and ruminate upon the social issues prevalent in the themes. Particular song lyrics coincide...

Music composition can be easy with a little software assistance. The class uses Garageband to listen to, write, sing, and record a blues song. They listen to the song provided through the software, write their own lyrics to the song,...

How did jazz influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Class members read some of Ellison's non-fiction writings about blues and jazz, listen to records, watch videos, and engage in student-centered discussions. They then produce podcasts...

Dive your class into a reading of Island of the Blue Dolphins with this in-depth study guide. Breaking the novel into three parts, the resource begins each section with a focus activity that identifies a specific theme or question...

You can't read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without craving the rich treats described in Dahl's vivid prose. Young writers try their hands at sensory language with a lesson plan that prompts them to write about...

This literature study PowerPoint summarizes the main story elements of the book, Island of the Blue Dolphins. Students read about the the theme, setting and events. There are also a few slides where students complete various interactive...

21st-century learners live in such a visual world that many are unused to letting their minds imagine the picture that words create. An excerpt from Carl Sagan's lecture, "The Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space,"...

What a great cross-curricular instructional activity to give to your kindergartners! They get printing practice by tracing the word blue, connecting its meaning by coloring bubbles blue. Finally, they connect the shape of the...

You don't need to be a food critic to describe your meal accurately! A series of activities introduce learners to vivid adjectives when writing about the taste, smell, and feel of food. After working with word choice, parts of a...

Watching Great Performances’ Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival Chicago launches an investigation into and discussion of how the electric guitar and guitarists have changed the sound of the blues over time. An engaging way to...

If friendship were a soup, what ingredients would be in it? As part of a study of Marcus Pfister's Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale, kids engage in a series of friendship-themed activities using materials contained in this richly...

Budding poets choose a topic for a sensory-filled poem. Authors describe that topic using detailed language based on the five senses. Then, switch the senses to create a fanciful poem intended to add a touch of fun to the objective. 

Descriptive writing is rich in sensory appeals and paints pictures in the minds of readers. Show young writers how to use an on-line thesaurus and a cliché website to create fresh, descriptive writing. The presentation ends with an...

Practice with paragraphs while thinking about careers! Learners examine and discuss two sample paragraphs, marking the different elements (topic sentences, body, concluding sentences), and try out writing their own paragraphs. Focusing...

Scholars stretch their writing muscles with an exercise that asks them to describe the sky using similes and metaphors. 

Fifth graders, after reading Island of the Blue Dolphins, explore map making using the Whole Language Approach.

Writing poetry in ancient China was the modern equivalent of sending a greeting card. Scholars learn about the ancient Chinese poetic form called the lu shih. They read about the context of poetry during the T'ang Dynasty and complete a...

Combine art, math, language arts, drama, and delicious Jell-o with a instructional activity based on the African folktale Anansi and the Tug o' War. Kids make predictions and discuss plot points of the story before joining in...

After watching West of the West's documentary The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, class members imagine how Juana Maria/Karana may have felt about living alone on the island for 18 years and craft a blackout poem or a narrative in...

Words of proof. Learners continue coding The Electric Motor by marking the first point in yellow and the second point in blue. They discuss the structure of the paragraphs by identifying transition words and evidence to support the...

Students use the internet to research a recent Blue Angels plane crash. As a class, they list the various ways journalists list the facts of an incident and which one is most effective given different scenerios. They write a story on...

Compose a Valentine's Day poem! Practicing their rhyming skills, scholars follow the traditional format to create a happy poem for a friend or family member. 

Take poetry off the page and put it into terms of movement, physical space and, finally, music with this series of three lessons from the Smithsonian Institution. This resource introduces students to two poetic forms that originated as...