Does the fastest one always win the race? Look deeper into The Tortoise and the Hare with a set of discussion questions for before, during, and after reading the story.

Family and Friends is the theme of a unit offering extra support lessons. Follow each lesson plan's teach, blend, guided practice or practice/apply routine to reinforce concepts such as clusters, responding to reading, drawing...

Houses come in all shapes and sizes, but not all houses are safe from Mr. and Mrs. Twit. The 10th lesson in a unit designed to accompany The Twits by Roald Dahl turns learners into architects. While designing houses for the monkeys, they...

Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...

Many informational texts are written as factual, but can your learners determine when an opinion is presented as fact? Have your kids read several articles on the same topic and record the statements that contain either facts or...

What important facts about Dr. Seuss influenced the Read Across America movement...? This is the driving question of a research project that requires scholars to find information about Dr. Seuss' life and work. Class...

This teaching packet is for grades five through eight, and it is organized around geographic themes: location, place, relationships, movement, and regions. There are four full lessons that are complete with posters, weblinks, and...

Fish, fowl, foul fish, or foul fowl? Just what is a siren? Young scholars listen to a video clip and draw what they imagine when they hear the word "siren." After watching several videos depicting sirens, class members read "The Sirens'...

Enhance a reading of the Caldecott Medal-winning children's book Joseph had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback with this collection of learning activities. Starting with general background information about the book and author,...

Inferencing is a necessary reading skill to uncover non-explicit messages in text. Use the set of resources as a way to guide learners toward becoming expert inferrers through reading prompts and literature with text and without text.

Scholars become detectives in a lesson that focuses on primary sources. Learners practice their observational skills by examining the teacher's artifact and visiting the Show and Tell Museum that highlihgts items from peers and...

In May of 1981, the Winter Park Sinkhole in Florida first appeared and is now referred to as Lake Rose. Scholars learn about the causes of sinkholes through an inquiry project. Then, they analyze recent data and draw conclusions to...

Introduce literature circles with Roland Smith's novels. Your seventh graders will see the activity modeled as you read The Three Little Pigs together and apply the format to a Roland Smith novel of their choice. The lesson includes...

The Boston Massacre is the focus of a lesson that explores primary sources. Scholars examine two primary source images and discuss the different perspectives on the historical event. After groups read a researched account, they perform a...

The Summer of the Swans, by Betsy Byars, is a 160-page chapter book about a family going through a difficult time. Complement your reading of Byars' book with this detailed outline of each chapter. Every section includes comprehension...

Scholars work in pairs to decide whether leaders wrote the Declaration of Independence for the rich and powerful or for every man. To draw their conclusion, pairs read excerpts from two historians and complete a graphic organizer...

To establish a context for an assessment or a study of pioneers and the American frontier in the 1800s, groups examine photos and record observations about clothing, housing, and travel.

To gain a better understanding of Hispanic heritage and culture, as well as to build informational comprehension skill, learners explore facets of Hispanic American History. They engage in a class discussion, research three facts, and...

Often our decisions are impacted by a fear of how others see us. That's the big idea in a two-day lesson that asks how false assumptions, how our fear of how others may see us, impact how we act. After watching a video about such a...

Gaining practice in translating a verbal description into a diagram and then an equation is the real point of this similar triangles exercise. Once the diagram is drawn, multiple methods are provided to reach the conclusion. An effective...

Ever-changing fashion fads are the ideal context for an engaging sociology experiment for adolescents. Through research and conducting a survey, learners draw conclusions about the controversial jelly bracelets fad, banned in some...

To develop their skill at drawing inferences from observations, sixth graders rotate through six stations, conduct a series of experiments, make observations, and draw inference from what they observe.

Begin your discussion about Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility before you even open the book. Kids fill in a worksheet that lists five statements about the literary themes of the novel, and then discuss their opinions as a...

It's that time of year to consider how Shakespeare selects his images and structures his Sonnet 73 to develop the meaning of the poem. Class members examine the rhyme scheme, the indented lines, the conceit, and the images used in each...