Given the two-sentence skeleton of a news story about a car theft/joy ride, budding writers create their own version of the story varying diction and sentence structure to heighten interest and complexity in their writing. Resource...

Having read and discussed Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, third graders demonstrate their bullfrog expertise by writing informational paragraphs. Building on the note-taking and paragraph planning from the previous lesson plan,...

Let's get visual. Pupils plan visual displays to accompany their upcoming opinion speech presentations. Additionally, they practice editing sentences for clarity before revising their speech drafts.

This mini-lesson about informal letter writing is packed with a lot of information about writing a friendly letter. Class members begin by working in pairs to answer questions after reviewing letter models. Then, take part in a grand...

Teach your upper graders how to use an idea web to develop a topic for writing. After reading a variety of stories about friendship (a list of stories with the theme of friendship is included), model using an idea web. Class members...

What makes a good monarch? Elementary and middle schoolers examine popular symbols of the British monarchy before designing a television advertisement about the qualities needed in a monarch. Next, they write poems using metaphors and...

Teens experience natural selection firsthand (or first beak) in an activity that has them act as finches foraging for food. Using different household items  to act as different beak styles, your little finches will collect as much...

Reinforce important reading skills with a set of vocabulary lesson plans. Middle schoolers complete sentences, play word games, finish analogies, and build their growing vocabulary with a packet of helpful and applicable graphic organizers.

While this is considered optional within the unit it is designed for, pupils would benefit from the listed activities. Working on writing and revising a paragraph about librarians who travel to isolated areas, class members can add some...

Triangle centers and the segments that create them easily become an exercise in memorization, without the help of engaging applications like this lesson. Here the class investigates the measure of center that is equidistant to the three...

The subject doesn't sound to interesting, but with a child's imagination even a trip to the store can be an adventure. The class writes a narrative story about a trip to the store. They organize their stories to include an introductory...

Writers use varied sentence patterns. They listen to the story of Cinderella rewritten so that each sentence starts with the next letter of the alphabet. They create their own version of The Three Little Pigs using the same concept.

With the help from learning games and holiday-themed coloring pages, scholars learn the importance of listening carefully and following directions. Coloring pages celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving. Learning games include...

Set young readers on the path toward fluency with this phonemic awareness resource. Based on the award-winning children's book, Where the Wild Things Are, this lesson allows beginning readers to practice isolating...

Eighth graders study persuasive writing. They analzye an editorial for introductory,body, and concluding sentences. They develop arguments for and against various topics in small groups.

Practice reading strategies using Elizabeti's Doll by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen. Readers utilize decoding and comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading the story. A detailed list of text features, high frequency words,...

Teaching young mathematicians about collecting and analyzing data allows for a variety of fun and engaging activities. Here, children observe the weather every day for a month, recording their observations in the form of a bar graph....

The second instructional activity in a five-part poetry unit asks seventh graders to construct a metaphor poem. First, pupils examine Emily Dickinson's "The Railway Train" and identify the metaphor. They then select an object and an...

Individually, letters have their own sounds, but when combined with other letters, those sounds completely change. Introduce letter combinations with a lesson that asks learners to search for combinations in familiar words and use oral...

There are so many authors of short stories, and your class can have the chance to study quite a few. This seventh lesson in a series of fourteen continues the decision-making process for the final assessment: a short story author study....

The first instructional activity of a five-instructional activity unit designed for eighth graders has class members reading and watching a video of Edgar Allen Poe's narrative poem, "The Raven." They then craft their narrative poem,...

Walt Whitman's "Captain, My Captain" and Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" provide seventh graders with examples of odes. After reading and discussing these and other examples, young poets craft an ode and respond to the ode of a...

Two sonnets provide seventh graders with examples of Shakespearean sonnets. After discussing the story of the poems and analyzing their rhyme scheme and rhythm, young poets craft a Shakespearian sonnet and share their work with two...

Change places with your pupils, and let them teach their peers! Each learner signs up to teach a word from a list provided by the teacher (included here). Then, they complete a graphic organizer to help them develop a better...