Support young scholars' oral language development with the use of four early childhood activities. To reinforce proficiency, pupils read with an adult, play a game of telephone with their peers, put on a play with puppets or stuffed...

Scritch, scratch, scritch. It's the sound of pupils writing poetry! Focus on sensory language and onomatopoeia with a writing lesson. After listening to some sounds, learners examine a couple of poems that include sound words and then...

Whether you choose to include Twelfth Night in your course or whether Shakespeare's comedy has been thrust upon you, be not afraid to incorporate an interactive resource into your study of Shakespeare's tale of loss, love, and identity....

Break out the slide whistles, triangles, and tambourines. It's time for a punctuation lesson. This richly detailed plan is loaded with ideas and activities for using rhythm instruments to accent the punctuation in folk tales. A...

Play a game of telephone, Dr. Seuss style! Kids can use the suggested phrases listed on this page or choose any silly sentence that the famous cat wearing a hat says. See the materials for two more activities.

Family and Friends is the theme of a unit consisting of English language development lessons. Reinforce language proficiency, particularly in family vocabulary, basic needs, feelings, short vowel sounds, blending, reading high frequency...

Don't let your pupils get bored with contractions! You've found a veritable squirrel-stash of activities right at your fingertips. This packet includes games, activities, and plenty of materials to support your lesson plans on...

First-year High school scholars explore the world of poetry with an 11-lesson unit that examines a range of poetry forms and tries their hand at crafting their own poems. Young poets then collect their work in a portfolio that they...

English language development lessons are brought to you in poems, picture cards, and grand discussions in a We Can Do It! themed unit. Topics of discussion include daily challenges, parts of a whole, words that describe what we...

To make the point that there are many forms of language, each with its own purpose, class members select 10 lines from Doescher's play, translate these lines first into contemporary English and then into "SMS/Tweet." 

Using or considering using Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God? Then this packet is a must for your curriculum library. The examination of how Hurston combines folklore and folk language to create the voice of her...

Feel the rhythm! Pupils begin reading Act 2, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as they continue participating in a drama circle. With discussion, they examine Shakespeare's use of rhyme, rhythm, and meter, analyzing how...

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.

Surprise! is the theme of this series of ESL lessons. Cover an array of topics such as where we live, different times of day, shapes, the city and the country, what we do for fun, jobs, and games, all while practicing how...

Pupils participate in a drama circle to read Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream aloud. They work with partners to discuss Shakespeare's use of language and analyze how specific lines of dialogue within the play help propel the...

Mercy! It's a wise teacher that knows their own students and what they need to appreciate Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. A 28-page tool kit ensures that every scholar will play a part. The kit is divided into 20 sections, each of...

What is Hamlet's attitude towards life and death in Shakespeare's Hamlet? Scholars continue reading the play to answer the question, paying particular attention to Hamlet's most famous soliloquy. By holding a discussion and completing...

What does your class want to know about William Shakespeare's The Tempest? Host a discussion about the questions high schoolers have about the play with a KWHL activity in which they write down their inquiries, what they...

Lines from Shakespeare and from hip-hop artists provide learners with an opportunity to examine the literary devices these artists use to express their ideas about love. Groups use the provided lines to craft found poems, and then the...

Walking in nature is the theme of a unit designed to support English language development lessons. Scholars look, write, speak, and move to explore topics such as camping, woodland animals, instruments,...

How do complex characters develop throughout a text? Pupils read Act 5.1 from Shakespeare's Macbeth, which depicts Lady Macbeth's descent into madness. Using discussion and writing exercises, scholars analyze how Shakespeare develops...

Class members identify bullying in contemporary texts and role play how they might change those scenes to examples of anti-bullying. They then re-define their initial definitions of bullying and discuss what they...

What decisions might an author make about the structure of a play? Pupils participate in an evidence-based discussion about Shakespeare's choices in Macbeth. Next, scholars analyze the effect of Shakespeare's structural choices in Act 2,...

ESL/ELD learners are provided extra support with the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt thematic units on silly stories by this packet of activities, exercises, and practice sets.