Introduce your middle schoolers to a performance and movement activity that uses their favorite stories from fairytales and folklore. They practice basic acting skills, create dialogues with a partner, and then as guided practice,...

Through the journey of four stories of immigration, scholars complete graphic organizers and apply knowledge to create a visual representation of their findings on a large poster. Third and fourth readers write a letter to their...

Learners read Spelldown, by Becky Mushko and consider how it portrays the Appalachian community. They define and discuss vocabulary presented in the story and write a comparison/contrast paper analyzing two of the story's characters. The...

Why are some people such good story tellers? Help youngsters demonstrate the art of storytelling. They start off by listening to a story and sharing what they noticed about the storytelling that made it exciting. Then, they study a story...

Support your instruction of The Cay by Theodore Taylor with this extensive unit of materials. Provided here are prereading activities, worksheets and discussion questions for the entire book, and reading quizzes that you can use to check...

Fifth graders use photographs to tell the story of immigrants. They use the Internet to help them research immigration.

Clearly written as an assignment for a higher-level education class, this formal lesson plan contains some fun and well-researched strategies for teaching the novel Tuck Everlasting  by Natalie Babbitt. Among the best ideas...

Designed with many of the Common Core standards in mind, this 10-lesson unit is brimming with ELL strategies, teacher's notes, and the best of core instructional methods for teaching the common elements of folktales, and exploring...

This chapter-by-chapter guide to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, designed to be used in either a classroom or homeschool setting, contains vocabulary lists, discussion questions, and writing prompts.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader guide includes chapter-by-chapter vocabulary lists and quizzes, discussion questions and writing prompts, and an explanation of Narnia expressions. Great for mainstream classrooms and homeschool situations.

Enrich your study of Charlotte's Web by E.B. White with this useful resource. Included here are 22 discussion questions, 15 extension ideas, and 10 curriculum questions that cover characters, plot, farming, and much, much more.

Many English teachers dream of a classroom full of readers silently enjoying their books. A useful guide helps make that dream become a reality by providing book recommendations for a range of readers. Each suggestion includes the...

Students read Grandpa's Mountain, participate in class discussion about good and bad consequences of Grandpa's fight to keep his home, and work in small groups to fill in decision trees about Grandpa, explaining why they believe he...

Learners discuss the right and wrong actions of a young Navajo boy. Using that information, they compare and contrast his culture to their own. In groups, they create a newspaper or poster showing the cultural contributions of the...

Students describe geographical places through art, music, writing, and math. They compile information in booklets which may be published.

What is peace and what does it mean to our society? To understand why peace is celebrated and what character traits or concepts relate to the action of peace, learners engage in a discussion, story time, and a craft project. The lesson...

Learners research an endangered animal using both printed material and the Internet. They organize their information and develop sentences to write a story to create a flip-it book. A worksheet is embedded in the lesson for students' use.

Students engage in a study about the biology of apples that includes growth and reproduction. They conduct research using a variety of resources. Students write a description of an apple brought to class by answering several questions....

Students explore birds, their territory, breeding, and seasonal movement. They research and collect information on birds through writing letters to ornithologists, reading in books, comparing web sites, and observing pictures. Students...

Conduct a Reader's Theater. Third, fourth, and fifth graders rewrite books with a baseball theme to a Reader's Theater format. They form groups of four or five, practice reading the script, and then perform it for an audience.

Students create an art project to be made into a laminated placemat to use during a classroom Thanksgiving feast. The lesson involves choosing at least three cutouts of elements of nature to glue onto a background page, drawing one...