After enjoying the story of Fox by Margaret Wild, students will work in small groups to generate possible themes that the book is trying to teach its readers. Themes will be shared whole-group, and a class list of the best themes will be...

After students are given time to think about the topic -"Alone Time with an Adult I Care about," they are given ten to fifteen minutes to write between five and ten sentences on the topic. They ten are told they will revise their...

After reading the book I Stink! by Kate McMullan, learners look at the structure of this "guess who I am" book as well as some similar stories. Then students complete a graphic organizer and write their own guess-who stories.

In this lesson plan, the mentor text utilized is Deborah Guarino's book, Is Your Mama a Llama?, with the focus of sentence fluency. Each student will think of an animal that that has the same initial sound as his/her name. Using the...

In this lesson plan, Dogs Don't Wear Sneakers by Laura Numeroff, is used as a mentor text for to highlight the trait of idea development. The content focus of the lesson is to highlight what topics cannot do. Students generate a list of...

Book reviews about Walter Dean Myers' Bad Boy and Madonna's Mr. Peabody's Apples are given on this site. The author suggests that using these books to help illustrate the concept that it better to tell the truth than to suffer the...

In this lesson, sentence fluency is the focus. The mentor text entitled Mrs. Wishy Washy is used to help students explore how using repetition techniques can enhance the meaning of a story. After reading the text, students will write...

In Robin Pulver's Punctuation Takes a Vacation students will see the value of punctuation and how it is necessary to use in writing. For younger students, use this book as supplemental reading material before beginning this lesson on...

In this lesson, Robert Burleigh's picture book entitled Flight is used as the mentor text. Students will record their favorite adjectives from the mentor text, rank them according to their favorite, and share them. Students will also use...

In this lesson, the picture book entitled Toad, written by Ruth Brown, is used as the mentor text. Students will record their favorite adjectives from the mentor text, rank them according to their favorite, and share them. Students will...

In this lesson, Andrew Clement's awesome picture book, Big Al is used as a mentor text. Students will record their favorite verbs from the mentor text, rank them according to their favorite, and share them. Students will also use...

In this lesson, The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown is used as a mentor text. Students will create an illustrated paragraph about a particular math topic. Students will use the mentor text and attempt to adapt the author's style to...

In this lesson, the book entitled The Greedy Triangle, written by Marilyn Burns, is shared. After sharing this read-aloud book, students will illustrate pictures that incorporate the triangle. Then will write three reasons why a triangle...

Six mini-lessons teach young writers how to borrow ideas or patterns from popular children's books to use in their Writing Workshop pieces. Text ideas and student samples are provided.

Students begin this lesson by reading several books about colors such as Cat's Colors by Jane Cabrera, My Many Colored Days by Dr. Suess, Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O'Neil, and A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni. After discussing...

After reading the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, young scholars have the chance to express the way they feel when they have a bad day. They will make personal connections as well as...

This lesson will allow students an opportunity to create a book about the different characteristics of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and insects. This lesson can be used as a wrap-up project for a unit on animals. This is a fun way for...

In this lesson students listen to the songs "Over the Rainbow," sung by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole and "Color Me Blind," sung by Extreme and read an excerpt from the book Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O'Neill. Then students work...

In this lesson, the book Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend, written by Melanie Watt, is used. Students will develop a question, collect data about the question, and then write a sentence about the findings of the data. [Requires Adobe...

In this lesson, the book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems is used as a mentor text. Students will learn how to evaluate the validity of a mathematical argument. Students will practice writing and revising their own...

In this lesson, Roald Dahl's book The Witches is used as a mentor text. Students will attempt to save themselves and the other children. Students will analyze real population statistics from world-wide and details from the story to...

This activity is centered on word choice and vocabulary and the book, I Wanna Iguana, by Karen Kaufman Orloff. Young learners learn to grasp the difference between begging and persuading and apply this knowledge to their own persuasive...

Inspired by Barry Lane's book 51 Wacky We-Search Reports, in this cross-curricular lesson learners learn how to summarize properly.

In this lesson, Melinda Long's picture book entitled How I Became a Pirate is used as the mentor text. Students will record their favorite complex sentences from the text and share them. Students will also use interactive buttons to...