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Calligraphy, Handwriting And The Alphabet
Students produce calligraphy projects using writing skills and unique tools in this six-day Art activity. Emphasis is placed upon the work of Portland, Oregon calligraphy artist Inga Dubay and her experiences with "Italic" writing...
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Create a Holiday for Your Favorite Hero
Students create a holiday for a hero. The person may be someone in history who is not currently honored with a holiday, another famous person, a family member, a friend, or someone else they admire.
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Allusions to Shakespeare in Popular Culture
Send your high schoolers on a scavenger hunt through popular culture (music, television, video games, movies) to find allusions to Shakespeare. They must each provide three to share with the class, and the one they present cannot have...
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Use Your Senses
Students use their five senses to write about popcorn to share with the class. The study the use of action verbs, adverbs,, and adjectives.
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You Bleed, You Learn?
Jump back into the 90s with Alannis Morissette's song "You Learn." After hearing the song, small groups analyze the lyrics and write an essay about a mistake they've learned from. Use the example sentences to identify the denotative and...
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Sunday School Inspiration Lessons
Many activities related to the Chrisitan religion are included in this lesson about storytelling; students create their own Bible related art from stickers, stamps, t-shirts and hats. Puppets also help to to retell Bible stories and...
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Integrating the Craft of Writing into Physical Education
Incorporate writing into your physical education class. In groups, learners unscramble a list of words related to exercise and use them in their journal writings. Using their name, they write one word related to physical activity that...
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Create a Book on Tape
Learners of all ages record themselves reading their favorite books with accuracy and feeling. They must read with sound effects and consider the audience for whom the tape is being made. They are assessed based on the quality of their...
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Literacy Lesson: Guided Reading
Here is a wonderful instructional activity designed for pupils with special needs. This well-thought-out instructional activity uses Big Books, familiar stories, and has a lot of review learning built into it. The book, The Keeping Quilt...
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Personal Narrative Paragraphs: Class Quilt
Begin this activity by asking third graders to bring from home pieces of cloth that represent something important to them. (Have extras for students who need them.) They reflect on important events in their lives, compose narrative...
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1900 America: Historical Voices, Poetic Visions
Students examine the United States at the turn of the century. Using primary source documents, they interpret them within a specific historical context. Using this information, they write a poem with metaphors and a specific meter They...
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Comprehending Informational Text
Do you know what a fallacy is? Discuss this term and its meaning with your class. Then, talk about why making generalizations about a large group of people isn't the best thing to do. As a group, study the included letter excerpt. It...
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Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Create an online poster, or Glogster, with your class to promote Ray Bradbury's novel Dandelion Wine. This activity can be done at any time in the novel, although the directions suggest waiting until your readers near the end so...
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How to Write an Essay: Secondary ed.
Whether introducing the structure of expository essays or reviewing the format with your high schoolers, take the time to check out this resource. Examples of seven common forms of introductory paragraphs and six types of conclusions, as...
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I Know an Old Lady
Young learners sing the song "I Know an Old Who Swallowed a Fly." They learn to track the words on a pocket chart and identify rhymes in the song as they are learning. Using illustrations, a flip chart, and the song, the teacher will...
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Everybody Get Ready
Learners identify and spell words containing the short /e/ sound. They rehearse a fun tongue twister which contains words emphasizing the short /e/ sound. They then read Red Gets Fed as a class. Have your group clap every time they hear...
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Collective Nouns and Verb Agreement Practice
Break down subject and verb agreement with this exercise. This activity only deals with present tense verbs and collective nouns. Pupils learn how to make the verb of a sentence agree with the collective noun by reading sentences and,...
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Ordinary People: Guided Imagery
After reading chapter six of Ordinary People with your class, conduct this activity with your class. Turn the lights down, put on your softest voice, and have them try to imagine that they lost a close friend. Then, encourage them to...
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Pudd'nhead Wilson: Guided Imagery
Inspire thought around some of the themes of Pudd'nhead Wilson with a visualization activity. As you read a passage, learners close their eyes and picture the scene. A writing exercise and discussion follow.
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Back To School Ideas_Compiled
Help your class participate in hands-on activities to get them back into the swing of going to school everyday. This list is designed for all grade levels with unique ideas for each (note that many ideas are geared for elementary, but...
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Poetry in Song
Have your music lovers examine song lyrics and identify the poetry elements or tools used by a lyricist. They review the song individually before working in groups to discuss what they discovered about the song's narrator or character...
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Module 3--Around the World
In this writing module worksheet, students fill out the opposites of eight adjectives describing towns/cities, fill in seven blanks in seven sentences with words from the word bank and write a paragraph comparing themselves to a friend...
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Night: Guided Imagery Activity
Prior to reading Night, class members engage in a guided imagery activity that helps them make text-to-self connections to Elie Wiesel’s account of his experiences with his father in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Complete directions, as well...
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1900 America: Primary Sources and Epic Poetry
Using Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and Hart Crane's The Bridge as models, class groups first craft their own epic poems for 1900 and, using primary sources, create a multi-media presentation that captures the sights and...