A series of activities based on Elizabeth George Speare's The Sign of The Beaver takes your class through vocabulary, reading comprehension, and literary analysis. A good packet or collection of assignments for a reading circle.

Give your class members proper guidelines for completing vocabulary work using this PowerPoint, which prompts learners to provide definitions based on context clues, then dictionary definitions, synonyms and antonyms, and finally, a...

Ensure that your pupils are paying attention to vocabulary each week. On this page, they can record eight words they find in their reading, or words provided by the instructor. Learners note down the page or line number the word came...

To stand up can have many different meanings. Examine the different usages in English and relate one of these meanings to a short film about homophobic bullying. Class members view and discuss the film as well as a short reading passage...

Some emotions are indescribable, but sometimes you have to try! After brainstorming adjectives that describe emotions, pupils watch a quick film, at first with no sound. Partners share their adjectives and come up with descriptions for...

Prepare your pupils for making excellent presentations. Class members discuss elements of a successful presentation, work in groups to come up with their own scripts for the featured video, compare their work to the original voice-over,...

Looking for a vocabulary list and exercise to use with a study of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton? Try out this resource, which provides both the list and the exercise. Each of 19 words is paired with a part of speech and definition or...

Clarify and examine specific words in depth with the Frayer model. Pupils can use this learning exercise to write down the definition, characteristics, examples, and nonexamples for a given word.

Explore the multiple meanings of common homographs with this fun language arts activity. Given a series of word webs and a pile of definition cards, children complete each web by matching four different definitions to each target word. A...

Supplement a class reading of the children's book Mice and Beans by Pam Muñoz Ryan with this fun vocabulary presentation. Each slide provides a definition, picture, and sentence demonstrating how the word is used. Young readers are also...

Show this presentation before beginning a study of "The Inn of Lost Time" by Lensey Namoika. The presentation includes: background information, vocabulary, an explanation of setting and mood, a section on sequence,and  a meet the writer...

Check out a resource made up of two separate exercises. The first page lists a series of higher-level questions about "The Inn of Lost Time" by Lensey Namoika. Use the questions to encourage discussion or as an assessment. Since they...

Dive into a class reading of the book George Washington's Socks with the help of this guide. Including a vocabulary list and series of comprehension questions for each chapter, this resource provides an excellent foundation for exploring...

There are many strategies that can help us learn and understand the meaning of new words! Young pupils complete this foldable by associating each vocabulary word with a definition, picture, and sentence.

Support vocabulary instruction for any unit with this quick exercise. Class members write down the word, part of speech, and definition. They compose an original sentence using the word, and draw a picture of the word. Four words fit on...

Require your class to look closely at terms by analyzing similarities and differences. The template provides space and sentence frames for writing about similarities and differences.

Junior high and high schoolers watch a short video about effective storytelling strategies. As they take a virtual field trip to the Hans Christian Andersen story hour in Central Park, learners differentiate between writing a story and...

Just because words sound alike doesn't mean they have the same definition. After viewing a short video about homophones, learners come up with their own list of homophones.

Looking for a fun activity for your vocabulary lesson? Bring a worksheet on "spoonerisms" to your fifth grade class. Kids decipher seven phrases that have mixed up the first letter sounds of each word. They then think of their own...

Spelling can be hard enough without silent letters. Help your third graders decode nine words that have the silent letter W, such as wrinkle or wrong. Once they decipher all nine words, they use each in a new sentence. The bottom of the...

Shorten names and words with different activities. Nicknames, acronyms, and shortened words (fridge instead of refrigerator, for example) are ways for third graders to build their vocabulary and differentiate between formal and informal...

Grapple with the challenging vocabulary that will arise in Our Town before readers get stumped. Provided here are two activities that focus on 20 words. In the first part, pupils answer questions that use the vocabulary words in context....

You scream, I scream! Young learners read this passage about ice cream flavors, then answer 13 questions about details from the reading. The questions address details from the text, vocabulary, and parts of speech. Use this activity to...

Working on analogies in your language arts class? Use this straightforward worksheet to address common techniques and strategies used to solve analogies. This activity is a great way to review vocabulary and to reinforce logical thinking...