Penguin Books
An Educator's Guide to Al Capone Does My Shirts
It's hard to imagine that life on Alcatraz could be dull. A series of intriguing lessons take readers through the novel Al Capone Does my Shirts. Pre-reading questions introduce the text and a range of suggestions, from comic strips to...
Poetry4kids
Twenty Fun Writing Prompts for Kids
Twenty prompts reinforce scholars' writing skills of essays and poems. Prompts cover topics such as superpowers, holidays, the weather, and more!
Goethe-Institut
Well-Known Tale: The Pied Piper of Hamelin
"The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is the focus of a lesson designed to shed light on the importance of keeping promises. As a class, scholars take part in a discussion on the topic of honesty and consequences. Independent readers then take to...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Vocabulary: Morphemic Elements, Rooting for Meaning!
Scholars work with root and meaning cards to build vocabulary skills. Playing with a partner, learners read a root, locate its meaning, and cover it with a counter. The first player to cover their board wins.
Curated OER
The Sons of Sultan Bey (Libya)
Imagine you could increase reading comprehension and social media skills at the same time. Learners can read and then respond to the tale "The Sons of Sultan Bey." Their comments are guided by comprehension-style questions and can be...
Curated OER
Keywords: A Memorization Strategy
Here is a fabulous, five-page lesson plan on how keywords can help a reader with his/her reading comprehension. After a teacher-led discussion, pupils pair off with each other and work together to identify the main idea in a passage of...
Curated OER
Scrambled Sentences
Here's a clever classroom game that will help learners with their sentence writing skills. It's a fast-paced game that is played in groups. Each makes up scrambled sentences that the other groups must solve. There are plenty of examples...
Curated OER
Frame Story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"
Mark Twain's frame story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" provides an opportunity for a study of this story-within-a-story pattern. Using an illustrated template, class members record a plot summary of the frame story...
Curated OER
Pendemonium: The Great African Surfari
Young scholars discover the importance of matching verbs to their subjects through a discussion of a whimsical video on verb agreement and a read aloud of the book, "To Root, To Toot To Parachute". They practice verb agreement in...
Curated OER
Iwo Jima
Here is a crossword puzzle on some of the more important aspects of the Iwo Jima conflict during World War II. There are four words to compose going across, and eight words going down. An answer key is on page two of the worksheet. Good...
Curated OER
Labor Day Workers Cube
Students examine the history of celebrating Labor Day and discuss the important role blue-collar workers play in the country's economy. After discussion, they create a cube displaying drawings of various jobs they admire. Panels of cube...
Curated OER
Telling My Tale
Students brainstorm a list of their primary interests and skills and depict their ideas and attributes by creating a conversational painting that profiles them. They can create a cartoon strip using multiple images as well and...
Curated OER
Venn Diagrams: Contrasts in Color
Compare and contrast two topics with your class. They will pick a topic of their choosing, create color-coded Venn diagram to visually organize their information, share diagrams with classmates, and write well-organized essay on...
Curated OER
Introducing Synonyms to Early Writers
Upper elementary schoolers examine the concept of synonyms and how using a variety of vocabulary through synonyms can expand their writing skills. They revise a paragraph using synonyms located on the Visual Thesaurus and participate in...
Curated OER
What Is a Euphemism?
In this euphemism worksheet, students study about this writing convention. Students guess what 5 euphemisms mean, then complete some writing and evaluating questions about euphemisms.
Curated OER
Read With Your Fingers
In this social studies activity, students investigate the Braille alphabet as a means of reading for the blind. Students study the Braille alphabet chart and read the information. Students translate 7 words into Braille and write a...
Curated OER
Persuasion Map
The Persuasion Map, a one-page graphic organizer from Houghton Mifflin, not only makes visual the logical organization structure of persuasive writing, but also provides young writers a chance to organize and record facts they will use...
Curated OER
Character Analysis Chart
This versatile graphic organizer could be used alongside any novel, poem, play, or story through which your class in studying character. Class members can get characters straight or describe particular characters in more detail with this...
Education World
Every Day Edit - First Hot-Air Balloon
Daily practice develops skills! Use this half-sheet to help learners correct grammatical errors in capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar. Today's topic is a hot-air balloon flight.
Education World
Every Day Edit - The Pig
Everyone loves pigs! Give this short, half-sheet editing practice to your middle schoolers to develop editing skills while they read about popular pig movies. They search for errors in capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar.
Education World
Every Day Edit - Time Zones
Make half the number of copies you need, and cut this document in two! Here's a great daily activity to hone the editing skills of your learners. For this short assignment, they learn about time zones and how they were established.
Education World
Every Day Edit - Montgomery Bus Boycott
Develop editing skills every day with these Every-Day Edits! This bell-ringer focuses on Rosa Parks and the infamous Montgomery Bus Boycott. As they read, learners search for errors in punctuation, grammar, spelling, and...
Curated OER
Advanced Synonyms and Antonyms- Multiple Choice- Verbs 4
In this synonyms and antonyms worksheet, students study 6 words in their own boxes and the 5 words below each. Students circle the word that is the best synonym for the word. Students then do the same in 6 more boxes; this time they...
Curated OER
Advanced Synonyms and Antonyms- Multiple Choice Verbs 5
Improve word choice and vocabulary skills with a straightforward grammar worksheet. As young readers observe the highlighted words for 12 multiple-choice questions, they choose the best synonym or antonym for each.