Friends Helping Friends

Conduct the letter activity described here at the beginning of the year. First, give a copy of a friendly letter to each of your pupils. This letter should be written by you and about you. Include errors for learners to fix. Class...

Just because kids today are well-versed in texting and emails doesn't mean they shouldn't learn how to write a friendly letter! Reinforce their letter-writing skills with a lesson focused on the elements of a friendly letter, as well as...

Being a bully is one thing, but stopping a bully from bullying is another. At what point does a bystander step in and stick up for the target of a bully? This questions is the focus of a reading passage that explains the importance of...

If readers don't understand key portions of a text, it may seem more like a foe than a friend. The second resource in a series of three ESL lessons designed to accompany the texts in Nature: Friend or Foe makes the texts easier to...

The teacher doesn't always have to be the expert in the classroom. The first in a series of three supplementary activities Nature: Friend or Foe uses hands-on research tasks and projects to enhance readers' understanding of non-fiction...

A terrific presentation on the teaching of friendly letter writing. Learners engage in a PowerPoint that is part story, part writing exercise. There are lots of great tips on how to construct a letter, and young writers are encouraged to...

Franklin the turtle makes a new friend as youngsters learn vocabulary in context using Paulette Bourgeois' story (tip: this strategy can be applied to any book). Brief kids on the new words so they can raise their hands when they hear...

Elementary schoolers complete word clusters after listening to the book Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters from Obedience School by Mark Teague. They listen as the teacher stops to point out the unusual point of view and various persuasive...

What would your super power be? After a discussion on superheroes and how they help their fictional communities, young writers write stories and comic strips about themselves as superheroes with the power to help others.

Check out this cute online interactive learning exercise. Pupils fill in the blank for each of the 10 sentences with one of four helping or linking verbs. Verbs focused on include was, were, wasn't, and weren't.