Eric Carle's illustrations feature paper collages, so after reading some of Carle's books you might create your own word collage for an added challenge. Students will choose a scene, an emotion, an animal, or a person. Then students...

As part of a unit on National Children's Book Week, this classroom activity suggests ways in which teachers can implement themes of the week into various lessons. The site also includes lesson plan ideas, web links, and additional texts.

Children go through certain phases of reading development from preschool through third grade- from exploration of books to independent reading. Find out what children at the first-grade phase should be able to do, and what teachers and...

This collection of trading cards was created by 5th and 6th graders at Shutesbury Elementary School in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, as part of a choice-based fictional reading project. Each student selected a fiction book that he or she...

Critical thinking, comprehension and analysis skills are the focus of this physical activity. Good beginning to teaching different ways of looking at things.

Comparing and contrasting works and looking for underlying themes and messages are at the heart of this multicultural lesson plan. Provides links to several background resources, and suggestions for assessment.

This children's book about beavers was written and illustrated by 6th graders after extensive field research with experts in the field. The book is unique in that it offers a continuous fictional narrative at the top of each page, an...

A profile of writer Judith Viorst. Looks at her accomplishments and awards and includes a long list of the many books she wrote, organized into categories of fiction and nonfiction for children and books and poetry for adults. The...

Have you ever read the Newbery award book Number the Stars by Lois Lowry? This site provides discussion questions, a writing prompt, an extension activity, and more.

Analyzing a book takes the form of creating their own when students complete this activity. The stated goal is to help students "Read like writers." Includes link to a template for student use.

This site, part of the online version of the magazine BookPage, provides a 1998 interview with Gary Soto, in which he discusses the themes of some of his works, his background, and his use of different genres of writing.

This field guide was created by 2nd graders in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was part of a two-month Learning Expedition that included field observation and collection, classroom experimentation and research, reading from books and...

High school students write and illustrate original fables for younger students and create bilingual children's books to encourage cultural awareness on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Discovering the Genesee was created by third grade students in Rochester, New York, as part of a Learning Expedition on local history. Student work was guided by four questions, which became the chapters of their book: Who were the...

"In this project based lesson plan, students learn about various types of energy and the need to conserve energy, write a children's story about saving energy, and read their energy books to elementary students."