Practice making predictions by looking at the cover of a book. You can use The Hungry Thing, as suggested here, or any other book you may be reading in class. Use the predictions to talk about good reading strategies. A chart is...

Explore reciprocal questioning with this ReQuest comprehension strategy. After reading a passage, learners first question the teacher, trying to "stump" her. Then it is the teacher's turn to ask the pupils questions. All correct answers...

Third graders answer text-dependent questions of the story Nasreen's Secret School both independently and then collaboratively through using the carousel of questions strategy. This plan is the seventh instructional activity in a...

Take the next step in the writing process with a lesson plan geared towards the completion of writing an evidence-based essay about a rule to live by, as Bud did in Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. Pupils collaborate with their...

What makes a poem difficult? Explore that topic and more with your class as you work through the activity detailed here. Using materials from Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation contest, individuals or small groups examine poems and...

The attached resource is no lie! The K-W-H-L activity, which is fourth in a series of seven, serves as a pre- and post-assessment. First, pupils brainstorm what they know about a specific topic, then they list what they want to know, how...

Airline mechanics must be precise, or the consequences could be deadly. Their target ranges alter with changes in temperature and pressure. When preparing an airplane for flight, you must read a maintenance graph. The second lesson of...

Explicitly explained and delightfully detailed are two ways to describe this tenth lesson plan in a larger unit designed for the first few weeks of third grade. Learners continue to use and develop previously learned close reading...

Here's a fun way to incorporate technology into your curriculum. E-mail each of your class members a picture and 10 questions about the photo. Individuals then imagine the story behind the image and e-mail back their responses. Although...

Here’s a reading strategy that can be used with any text. Class members examine portions of a novel, and make predictions about the theme or subject matter of the book. Although designed for Christopher Paul Curtis’s Newbery Medal...

Explore emotions associated with moving to a new home with young learners. First they listen to the books Painted Words/Spoken Memories by Aliki and Going Home by Eve Bunting. Then they are invited to share their experiences as well as...

In many places in the world, people go to great lengths to get books to read. This beginning-of-the-year activity uses pictures of people reading in extraordinary situations to stimulate effective listening and speaking using the...

With What Do You See at the Pond?, young readers explore pond life and practice reading strategies. Learners first make predictions and then read the simple story independently. After a second read-through with a partner, kids come...

Start with the question in mind with a discussion activity on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. With four focus questions, note-taking prompts, and discussion points, readers practice answering thematic questions based on textual evidence.

Are all criminals bad people? Pupils answer this and other compelling questions in an anticipation guide for The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Designed for learners to complete before reading the text, the...

How many times could California fit into the entire United States? Pupils use scientific notation to find the answer to that question in the 12th installment of 15 lessons. It asks scholars to write numbers in scientific notation and...

Seventh graders investigate how changes in the mass or height of a ramp can affect the change in potential energy. They discuss the concepts of work and energy, then using the four question strategy, they design an experiment that...

Looking for an alternative approach to long division? Show your classes how to use factoring in place of long division. Increase their fluency with factoring at the same time!

Your learners will be tantalized by this inquiry-based, collaborative activity as they discover how to write an equation that represents the height of an ice cream cone. Given the scenario based on the poem, "Eighteen Flavors," and...

Students explore reading comprehension by completing a graphic organizer. In this journalism technique lesson, students discuss important questions they can ask about stories they read to improve comprehension. Students identify keywords...

In this story structure instructional activity, students read the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and identify the characters, setting and main themes of the book. They answer a list of study questions about the book.

Elementary schoolers discover that the world is at their fingertips as they acquire new vocabulary. Several suggested activities and strategies are provided here, building new reading and oral vocabulary. 

Students discover the impact "Lady Bird" Johnson had on America by reading a short biography.  In this historical persons instructional activity, students read a multi page biography of the former first lady and write a summary of...

Factoring doesn't have to be intimidating. Build on prior knowledge of multiplying binomials and factoring simple trinomials to teach advanced factoring of quadratic expressions with a lesson that uses various methods of exploring the...