Help primary school pupils learn valuable reading strategies. As they choral read a poster or big book, they predict covered words and learn various reading strategies for figuring out an unknown word. This will help them gain an...

As a before reading strategy, class members select a tale from mythology, examine several picture book versions of the myth, and fill out part of a Venn diagram with observations about the hero in particular and the myth in...

When would two paws up denote a blockbuster film in your classroom? Only when young writers create movie reviews from a pet's perspective in this imaginative expository writing practice. This engaging topic begins with a class discussion...

“There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night.” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest,” which may or may not have been the first chapter of the original Dracula manuscript, is the focus of a Directed Reading Thinking Activity...

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...

Post-It notes, highlighting, underlining. Sam Anderson’s New York Times Magazine article, “What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text,” launches a study of “marginalia,” or writing thoughts in the margins of a text. After...

Prior to reading chapter 17 of Dandelion Wine, partners look up and illustrate level three words found in Colonel Freeleigh’s many allusions. Pairs then share with the whole class. Detailed instructions for the activity are included. 

Few topics engage young mathematicians as much as learning about money. Through a series of shared readings and hands-on activities, children explore the US currency system, learning how to count money and calculate change as they create...

In the second lesson plan in a series that revolves around the story, Thank You, Mr. Falker, learners practice the skill of answering direct questions from the text while using complete sentences. After a teacher-led review of how to...

Whether new to the KWHL strategy or not readers of Briar Rose will benefit from the detailed procedures and templates designed for Jane Yolen’s novel. Links are provided for research into the Holocaust and activities reveal the many...

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...

Readers are presented with a list of three questions and asked to actively listen to a story or article to answer them. They verbally answer the questions to learn the strategy. Next, read a story to them or have them silently read a...

Introduce the themes of Fever 1793 and determine your class members’ level of background knowledge with an anticipation guide for Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel about the yellow fever epidemic that swept Philadelphia. For each prompt,...

Introduce middle schoolers to the different strategies used when reading prose versus poetry. Groups use a Venn diagram and a poetry analysis handout to compare the characteristics of an informational text and a  poem on the same...

Individuals use words or illustrate what they experience during a reading of a passage from chapter eight of Gary Paulsen's Canyons. Complete directions for the guided imagery exercise, and a suggested passage, are included with the...

Japanese Internment and World war II are the focus of a KWHL strategy used to scaffold for a reading of Journey to Topaz,  Yoshiko Uchida's story of 11-year-old Yuki Sakane and her family. Complete directions for the activity...

What a great resource to share! Based on the book Lost Names by Richard Kim, this valuable lesson plan focuses on the Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII. Additionally, it employs first-person journaling as a mode of understanding...

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,...

Your learners connect the new concepts of transformations in the coordinate plane to their previous knowledge using the solid vocabulary development in this unit. Like a foreign language, mathematics has its own set of vocabulary terms...

Sometimes what you get is far more than what you first see. The third routine in the Building Community series asks participants to engage in a See, Think, Wonder strategy. Small groups analyze a projected image, infer what is happening,...

Here's a great way to make vocabulary words drawn from Edward Bloor's novel Tangerine memorable. Kids create a word square, and in one quadrant write the word. A picture goes in a second quadrant, the definition in a third, and a...

Who am I? Pupils work to answer this question through a unit that explores personal narratives and identity. Exit tickets for activities that examine different poems, short stories, and autobiographical writing serve as prewriting for...

This lesson plan is designed for college students who are having anxiety regarding public speaking. In it, the speech givers go through a process of using imagery in order to reduce anxiety. The instructor guides the pupils in...

Have your class explore the effects of war by reading Eleanor Coerr's story, "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes." This is a story about a sixth grader who lives in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb is dropped. Learners answer questions,...