Curated OER
Cinderella Cinderella
Students compare and contrast various versions of the story Cinderella and create their own version. They read versions of Cinderella and identify their components including setting, characters, events/plot, magic and biographical...
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Easy to Read
Students compare reading passages in paragraph form to book form. They determine that the reading passages on the state assessments are no more difficult than the books they choose to read. They turn their favorite books into reading...
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Character and Plot Development Through Comics
Third graders are introduced to character, plot development, point of view, and tone through the use of comic strips. They, in pairs, identify these four attributes in the comic strip and present their findings to the class.
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Characterization
A 46-slide presentation focuses on ways to describe characters in stories, how to create story characters, and how to show a character's personality in a student-created story. The colorful and engaging slides provide lots of great ideas...
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Happy Birthday Hans: How To Celebrate International Children's Book Day
Honor Hans Christian Andersen while encouraging young readers with enjoyable projects and activities.
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Aesop's Fables
Examine the fables of Aesop with your class. Pupils identify the morals of fables and role-play a scene from their favorite fable of Aesop. Additionally, they compose letters to a favorite character in the fable. Learners role-play again...
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Round-Robin Reading Quiz
Small groups of learners read text round-robin style, and then work individually to answer three questions based on the text. Next, they share their questions and responses and add ideas from the group. The reading strategies detailed...
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Vocabulary through Text
Explore word meanings. Sixth graders identify examples of words with affixes while listening to the story Paul Bunyan by Steven Kellogg. They participate in the game "Pass the Parts" and practice separating given words into their root...
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Build Mastery: Visualization
What do you see? Young reader tap into the visualization process as they listen to or read a fiction story and fill out a graphic organizer. Model this first with a think-aloud, showing scholars how you visualize a familiar story. For...
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Author, Author!
Third graders, in groups, select and research a favorite studenT author or illustrator. They answer questions about the author, conduct research and prepare a PowerPoint presentation with their findings.
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Spelling Detective
Put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and become a spelling detective! Scholars hunt down the spelling errors in a short passage of a high-interest current events text. Here is a great way to develop editing and reading skills.
Roald Dahl
Matilda - Miss Honey and The Trunchbull
As the instructor reads aloud several quotes from five chapters of the story Matilda, class members mime their interpretation of the scenes. Then, after reading "Miss Honey" and "The Trenchbull" (chapters seven and eight), the class...
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Meaty Words
Headlines from newspapers launch a discussion of image-rich, meaty words. Just as headline writers choose vivid vocabulary to attract readers, young writers develop headlines that capture the essence of a passage from a book they are...
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Children's Books Teach Diversity, Respect
Young scholars compare aspects of children's books that teach diversity and respect. They examine universal values such as courage and bravery, respect and apathy. They create a final project based on their ability to recognize the...
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Finding Captain Hook's Treasure
Young scholars use their map-reading skills to find Captain Hook's treasure. They see how the directions on a map correspond with "real-life" directions, and that symbols on a map represent real things.
Curated OER
Book Buddies
Students read a book and share a book review with an e-mail book buddy once a month. They word process the review, copy and paste into the e-mail for sharing.