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Amelia Earhart
Your class can learn about Amelia Earhart and practice important comprehension skills here. Learners answer questions about cause and effect, compare texts, and discuss similes and metaphors after reading Amelia Earhart: Free in the...
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Give Me Liberty or Give Me Freedom
Welcome to America, the land of liberty and freedom. Examine the ways in which the terms liberty and freedom have been used in the United States. After researching and analyzing quotations from the past and present, students create an...
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Poetic Justice: Understanding the Life of a Tethered Dog
The Humane Society provides a lesson in which class members explore the issue of tethering dogs. Through the resources used -- a comic, a poem, and narrative and expository writings -- class members realize that messages can be conveyed...
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Go Free or Die: Figurative Language
Figures of speech, sensory details, and academic language are all targeted while reading Chapter Two of J. Ferris’ Go Free or Die. First, learners engage in an exercise to practice describing with detail. Then, partners use a chart to...
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Theater: Create a Script
Figurative language is the focus in the book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia. After reading Peggy Parish's book, class members dramatize idioms from the text, using dramatic strategies such as characterization, exaggeration, and improvisation....
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Go Free or Die
Groups of older elementary learners begin their study of figurative language by visiting a website and completing the exercises detailed there. They then apply what they have learned by finding examples in several poems. Finally, they...
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Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems
Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...
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Eating Up Idioms
Ah, food idioms! Now that sounds tasty. Class members read and discuss various food-related idioms, create an illustration of a food-related idiom, and develop a class book or bulletin board to celebrate figurative language and National...
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Sayings Quiz: Mixed 4
Comprehend English sayings! Elementary schoolers read familiar sayings in isolation and in context in order to determine their usage. They choose 10 multiple choice answers and use the buttons to check their answers.
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Sayings Quiz: Mixed 2
This online, interactive quiz highlights 10 English sayings. The adage is bolded, and learners must choose one of three options that correctly highlight the adage's meaning. What's great is that the user can access immediate feedback by...
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English Expressions Quiz: Online
An online worksheet provides opportunities to assess comprehension of 10 common adages like "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" or "Variety is the spice of life." Learners complete a multiple choice quiz (and can check their...
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Illustrating Proverbs
Explore some of the lesser-known proverbs from around the world. Here is a two-page worksheet with four Malay proverbs listed. For each proverb, the pupil must describe its lesson, think of any similar proverbs, and illustrate the...
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Weather Proverbs
Define and write proverbs! Learners define proverbs, use the Internet to find weather-related proverbs, and talk with their parents to learn other proverbs. There's a well-structured worksheet included here.
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Comparisons: Well-Known Sayings
How familiar is your class with basic idioms? Eight idioms and their explanations are listed here, and learners must match each explanation with the correct idiom. Looking for a way to extend this activity? Have your learners choose one...
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It's Raining Cats and Dogs
Make a beeline to this activity. Prepare paper strips with the provided idioms to engage teams in illustrating their literal meanings. The drawings provide the impetus for a guessing game where class members compete to be the first to...
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Proverbs of One World
Bring your class to the computer lab, and have them use the library and online resources to select proverbs related to specified themes. They create a book or bulletin board of proverbs that offer lessons connected to themes of freedom,...
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Problem-Solving Processes and Figurative Language
Nonfiction texts about people on the move provide young readers with an opportunity to examine not only the problem-solving strategies employed by immigrants, but to also find examples of figurative language these writers use to tell...
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Snappy Solutions, Sizzling Sentences
An examination of the figurative language in Gwendolyn Brooks’ To Young Readers challenges your writers to think about the richness of language. Ask your class why Brooks says, “Good books are bandages.” This discussion of alliteration,...
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A Creative Presentation
Bring writing to life with this lesson in which elementary and middle schoolers create a display of the imagery they identify in a series of Gary Paulsen books. They read the suggested materials, identify imagery and descriptive...
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Idioms Quiz: Animals 2
Kill two birds with one stone with a worksheet that not only gives practice using idioms but also has a technology link as well. Learners answer the 10 multiple choice questions of an online interactive quiz about the meaning of idioms...
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Contrary Proverbs #32
Good things come in small packages, but the bigger the better! Wait, what? Explore common proverbs and their equally as common contradictory proverbs! Learners select the proverb they think contrasts the initial proverb given, and then...
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Proverbs
Introduce your English language learners to some of our common proverbs with this online activity. There are 10 proverbs listed here, and the user much match the beginning of each proverb given to its correct ending. There are only two...
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Proverbial Picture Pages
Examine the meaning of the word proverb, and then choose proverbs from a list. The list is not provided, but there are several resources listed here to find a variety of proverbs. Then have your learners explain the meaning of each...
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Weather Proverbs
Your class explores weather proverbs and superstitions from around the country and writes their own proverb about weather. They interview community elders to learn proverbs about Alaska and its weather. Then they discuss several example...