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Vocabulary Strategy: Call of the Wild
Here is a strategy for groups to contribute to whole class vocabulary development. Teams (based on seating rows) work together to look up dictionary definitions of words from upcoming sections of the book (though previous sections seem...
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Personification Lesson Plans and Resources
This resource on personification provides three different approaches aimed at different levels. The first, appropriate for upper elementary, provides examples of personification, followed by an exercise that requires replacing a word in...
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Creating a Memorial Day Poster Poem
Does your class know about the meaning of Memorial Day? Discuss the history of the holiday in this lesson, which prompts elementary and middle schoolers to create word webs of ideas about the holiday. Additionally, they create poems...
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The Sand Horse
Fourth graders are introduced to the book THE SAND HORSE and discuss the title and cover illustration. They listen to the story listening for words and phrases to describe the setting. They then brainstorm key words to illustrate the...
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Techno Author
Here is a great way to explore language arts by completing a computer activity with classmates. Youngsters read a fairy tale in class and analyze where the beginning, middle and end are. They create their own story using clip art and...
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Build Listening Skills With Asian Folktales
Students read five folktales. After each folktale is read students use a map to find the location of the country of the tale's origin. Next, students answer comprehension questions related to each folktale.
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Community Ripple
Originally designed to be used along with a text that is not included, this plan contains a graphic organizer and word guessing game to help readers use decoding strategies to gain new vocabulary. A set of questions relating to community...
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Animation Pre-Production
Does your class love reading cartoons? Use their talents and interests to examine the process of writing a story they wish to tell through a cartoon. They develop the beginning, middle, and end of a story based on their original...
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What is a Haiku? How Do You Write a Haiku?
Haiku poetry is explored in this language arts lesson. Yong readers identify the characteristics of haiku and read several examples. Students make connections between their study of Japan and the poetic form of haiku, and they write...
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Poetry Cyberbook
Emerging poets design a website and then post seven original poems as well as their written critique of these poems. Although the resource mentions Inspiration and FrontPage technologies, any software could be substituted.
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The Three Little Pigs Pop Up Book Sample
Youngsters practice summarizing and retelling the story of The Three Little Pigsin their own words as well as the original version of the book. They color the pictures and cut out a similiar house on their own as well.
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Capitalization and Punctuation
First and second graders explore writing conventions. They add question marks or periods to the end of teacher generated sentences on sentence strips. They locate punctuation marks in poems and write original sentences using appropriate...
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Scrambled Stories
Character development, setting, and plot? Sounds like the makings of a good narrative story. Young authors read and analyze several narrative examples, and then they use what they know to pen an original composition. They work both in...
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Understanding Fantasy
Explore fantasy as a genre. After working in small groups to identify literary elements in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, class members share their work and then use the presentations to help them prepare to write...
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Stone Soup
First graders examine the use of logic, deduction, and inference to determine the answers to riddles. They listen to a teacher read aloud of Heather Forest's, Stone Soup before discussing the story which gauges their comprehension....
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Essay: The Importance of Physical Education
Originally designed for a physical education classroom, this lesson plan asks learners to argue for their school to keep their PE class during budget cuts. Whether your school is facing this challenge or not, it does pose a great...
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Calling All Directors
Interpret Shakespearian scenes with your middle and high school classes. Groups select scenes from plays that they are familiar with to perform for their classmates. They should attempt to recreate the emotions they think the characters...
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Slang
Students examine the term 'slang' after reading two stories, "'Cool' is your favorite word!" and "Bling bling makes it into dictionary". Students work on composing their own rhyming words and phrases after studying slang.
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Ancient Greece
Students explore the origins of modern language. In this etymology lesson, students discuss the cultural influences of Ancient Greece on modern society. Students design and complete charts that demonstrate the original and contemporary...
National First Ladies' Library
Latin: The Language of Ancient Rome
Middle schoolers gain understanding about where some of today's words originated by reviewing a list of Latin words and their meanings. They work in small groups to create dictionary pages which will then be compiled into a large...
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Vocabulary Building Cards
Learners select vocabulary words from their reading each week then complete a card for each word which includes definition, source and a sample sentence. They share their cards with the class and complete vocabulary building cards...
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Rooting One's Way To Meaning
Pupils use a thesaurus on the internet to explore the meanings of Greek and Latin roots. They find definitions of given words, draw a concept map for root words, and write four synonyms for each word. Students discover how Latin and...
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The Twelve Days of Christmas
Young scholars explore the origins of a traditional Christmas song. They adapt historic lyrics to have meaning in their lives today and fabricate, write, and illustrate an accordion book or card. They compare this song to the words of...
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Very Voracious Animal Voices
Learners draw a picture of an original animal and then write a poem with words that begin only with the same first letter as the animal. Individually, they must decide how it might sound, where it lives and eats. To end the instructional...