The Important Thing About a Family

Young readers learn how to use the features of informational texts, such as the contents page and chapter title, to help them in reading these kinds of texts. For this lesson, they practice this strategy while reading the book Amazing...

A unique twist on a family tree project is a fun alternative to the traditional family tree drawing. This 3D family tree would make a great display for back to school night or open house. Presenting all the important people in their...

First graders examine the ways families provide basic needs to their members. They listen to the book, The Important Book, by Margaret Wise Brown, and create a flip book that demonstrates the important things about a family.

In an engaging anticipatory set, the teacher uses several different strategies to activate prior knowledge about reading with expression, including using sentence strips (that must be prepped ahead of time) to show different moods. The...

Who was the Radcliffe family? Young learners find out about the life and times of a family from long ago. They analyze the family portrait, write a story about the family, and then use their story to create thought or word bubbles which...

A read-aloud of the story, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, begins a lesson all about big emotions. Scholars share a time when someone they know exhibited strong feelings, focusing on what they said, looked like, and how they...

Do you know Clifford, the big, red dog? Clifford takes an adventure to see his family, and young readers join him to learn some new vocabulary in context! Before reading, introduce the four new words: city, county,...

Lisa Peters presents macroevolution as a large-scale family tree in her book Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story. She suggests the process from single-celled organisms to modern-day humans, and learners explore new vocabulary through the...

Discover how Arbor Day came to be with a brief, engaging video. Scholars watch how Nebraska's first pioneer in 1854 decided why planting trees was important and the journey that took place to make Arbor Day a national holiday celebrated...

How do you write a paragraph? First and second graders investigate what a paragraph is and discover its format. The teacher guides them in writing about an oreo cookie before they have the opportunity to use the template themselves. The...