Support your writers! Clear procedures and appropriate support make this a superb resource for elementary writing instruction. Ready your class to compose original descriptive paragraphs inspired by the episode in Roald Dahl's James and...

Visit the Magic Treehouse and take your class on a trip through time with a reading of the children's book Mummies in the Morning. Using the story to spark an investigation into Egyptian culture, this literature unit engages...

Whether it's dark, delightful, or somber, set the mood with William Golding's Lord of the Flies. High-schoolers practice descriptive writing by creating the appropriate mood for an original scene, starring one of the book's main...

Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

Create a picture dictionary for one of William Shakespeare's most famous plays. After readers finish The Tempest, they assign each letter of the alphabet to a concept or character, and add a description and evidence from...

Every child is an author with this engaging reading activity. First the class reviews the various parts of a book such as the title, author, dedication, and author-biography. Then each individual will choose a story of their...

Help readers understand the roles of authors and illustrators and why they have been recognized by medals of excellence. Your class will discuss and then create illustrations for a book. When they have finished, you can hold your own...

This unit introduces book clubs/literature circles to lower elementary classes, but could be adapted to higher grades. It outlines the anticipatory activity that includes a WebQuest, a discussion to clarify questions about the unit,...

Research current and proposed peace talks around the world with this New York Times instructional activity, Using the Darfur peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria as a starting point, middle schoolers create a news program on the subject. They...

Youngsters visit the classroom library to complete various reading activities, pushing their motivation to read! They will discuss different library books and read two specific books that use "Building Block" reading skills. They also...

Everyone comes from somewhere. An interdisciplinary lesson on Elvira Woodruff's The Orphan of Ellis Island includes discussion starter and writing prompts for the novel, as well as a graphic organizer to help learners begin their...

Let's learn the alphabet! Young learners will keep letter journals, writing down words they like and drawing pictures. They'll also complete a simple worksheet that requires them to organize books in alphabetical order. 

Take writing prompts to another level in this activity, which allows pupils to create scenes of dialogue based on the 1903 silent film, The Great Train Robbery. Useful for a language arts/history cross-curricular activity, the lesson...

Children have rights! Exploring those rights and using media to express those rights is the focus of this Media Awareness Network activity. Although some of the law links reflect the Canadian Articles of The Convention, the majority of...

Who is Hattie? Youngsters explore animal characteristics by reading poems and stories in class. They read the book Hattie and the Fox about a fictitious fox and his drama with the other farm animals. Then they reread the story over...

Students explore the significance of various body parts in artistic and social expression. They research a body part and create a museum installation depicting the artistic and social significance of the body part throughout history.

Kenzuke's Kingdom is a wonderful adventure about a boy sailing around the world, it's also the focus of this lesson. Students read the novel as a class then use the Comic Life website to create a two-page comic based on the story. This...

Students complete a variety of activities related to the Jan Brett version of the book "The Gingerbread Man." They compare and contrast two versions of the story, prepare and eat gingerbread cookies, describe their gingerbread man...

After reading a self-selected book, young reviewers plan, draft, revise, edit and polish a book review as their report on the book. Reviewers record and edit their report which is then placed in the digital library for others to enjoy.

Students read Newbery award books. In this Newbery book lesson plan, students look online to find all the books that have received this award and look through online reviews to find one they would like to read. After finishing the book,...

Pupils read the book Artichoke's Heart and complete discussion questions about it. In this Artichoke's Heart lesson plan, students discuss the book with the class in a book club format.

What do Jeep advertisements and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have in common? They both employ the art of the extended metaphor! Using the Six-Trait Writing model, learners begin to work on their own extended metaphors. Development...

Statements can be taken out of context and interpreted or used to support a very different view than the one originally intended. Young journalists start thinking about leading questions, sentence structure, context, and how they all...

Young scholars paint alliteration pictures. In this adjectives instructional activity, students select an adjective and noun that begin with the same letter, for example: hairy heart, to represent in a painting.