Boggle, Jot Thoughts, Trading Cards, Commercial Breaks, Snowball Fight, Bingo, Draw it! Here’s a bunch of review games that would make a great addition to your curriculum library. The games can be easily adapted to address the Common...

Seventh graders investigate bullying. In this character education lesson, 7th graders participate in a class discussion on how to make the school a more respectful place. Students brainstorm ideas and develop a plan to create a...

Students perform a play based on a legend. In this performing arts lesson, students read the legend Kangaroo Gets a Pouch and brainstorm ways to turn the story into a play. Students prepare for a short play, including costumes and...

Do you have a class set PDAs? Seventh graders use the Note Pad function on their PDAs to brainstorm writing prompts. After three minutes of listing their favorite foods, class members use the Note Pad Eraser to reduce their list to the...

Natalie Babbitt's award winning fantasy, Tuck Everlasting, is the anchor text in a unit plan that focuses on identifying similes, metaphors, imagery, and personification in the text and analyzing how these elements effect the...

Fourth graders work together and generate a list of skills needed to work with diverse groups of people. They brainstorm the meaning of "diversity."' Students write as many skills as they can in two minutes. They listen and share ideas...

If you are interested in having a basic framework for teaching expository, narrative, persuasive, and descriptive writing, this resource may help; however, you will have to find information on the different forms of writing to share with...

Introduce young writers to the writing process. Activities model the steps in the writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, polishing). A logic tree template is also included. 

Google it! Like Kleenix, Google has genericized. But when beginning a project, young researchers need to go beyond search engines and become aware of the different types of research resources available. Introduce the options with a...

Students develop their creative abilities. In this creative thinking lesson, students examine different shapes and drawings and discuss what it makes them think of. Students create self confidence by thinking together in groups.

Here's a formal plan for what many effective teachers already do: Provide a week's worth of aphorisms and have learners choose one to write about in their journals each day. They reflect on the meaning of each aphorism and project how it...

Young muralists use digital images they take of buildings, locations, landmarks, or places inside the school to create an original work of art. After locating sites of importance and researching to find information, members try to...

Children listen to the story, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, and discuss the sequence of events. They create a booklet, sequencing the events in the correct order.

Use details and transition words to enhance writing. Sixth graders examine their own writing and insert more details and transition words provided by their teacher. There is a list of 11 "Terrific Transitions," but brainstorm several...

Here's an alternative to a traditional book report for your class to demonstrate that they understand and can articulate the main character's evolution and the social themes presented in Voltaire's satirical novel Candide. Your young...

Students interview a family member of a different generation. After brainstorming story topic ideas, they choose a topic about which to write focused interview questions. Using their notes from the interviews, students write and essay...

Ninth graders identify and recognize characteristics of nonfiction in literary works, explore language and culture of Gullah people, compare and contrast purposes of spirituals and quilts in terms of their relationships to escape from...

Fifth graders examine the roles of Aboriginal women in their community long ago. They explore the different roles Aboriginal women portray in today's society. They address any stereotyping they may have regarding Aboriginal people.

Design a new organism with recyclable art materials! After learning about the coastal biome, learners brainstorm challenges that a plant or animal may face. They use their ideas to create a creature, complete with environmental...

Students explore personal characteristics of Jewish students in concentration camps and the ghetto and make a time capsule of events and photographs following survivors from the ghetto and concentration camps to freedom.

Second graders are asked: "What roles do people have in the community?" They view a large web on chart paper. Students discuss the roles that they play in their community. They are told that just as the principal or teacher has many...

Students examine different types of rock art. They analyze them to try to figure out the meaning of the art. They create their own rock art that tells a story. They share their creation with the class.

Students create brainstorming webs to facilitate discussions about writing about an informational topic. In this writing lesson plan, students do this in groups and then free write about their topic.

Students create a free from poem on the topic of friendship. They read examples of free form poetry to gather ideas. Through the use of a graphic organizer, students generate a list of friendship characteristics which is used to create...