Second graders create an encyclopedia of unusual animals, using a variety of resources to collect their information. Each student illustrates an animal and provides a brief description for each letter of the alphabet. A very nice,...

Learners listen to audio tape of segment of novel, The Outsiders, practice using online dictionary to look up and define vocabulary words, and create list of terms in Microsoft Word document.

Learners preparing for the GED test practice the components of reading for comprehension. Students complete a practice test activity and use a calculator to score the practice test.

Fourth graders compose sentences that use descriptive adjectives to describe a specific food and day that they both like and dislike. They should really enjoy coming up with words that describe their favorite and least favorite foods!

In these vocabulary building worksheets, students complete several activities to help them learn how to spell and use the words mail, gain, contains, fair, daily, airline, and maintain.

Fourth graders investigate the style of diary writing as its own genre of literature. They read Harriet The Spy in order to have a text for this literature study. Students use the skill of prediction to preview the story, and then...

A lovely guided reading lesson awaits you and your students. They read the book,Corn is Maize: The Gift of the Indians, by Aliki, summarize the important events of the story, and describe how corn has helped develop culture in America.

Students discover and identify cryptology used in everyday life. They decipher or crack codes. Students create their own secret writing or coded messages, and develop a dictionary of eponyms. They discuss how they have already...

Students find vivid verbs in literature and use them in their own writing. In this vivid verbs lesson, students use a 'Thinking Thesaurus' of major verbs to study common verbs. Students then practice rewriting sentences using vivid...

Students, after reviewing and drilling on a unique vocabulary list of terms, analyze the proper procedures for fire, crime or medical emergencies. They examine how to stay calm and collected during such emergencies and why its important...

Students know and apply methods to help learn and remember correct spellings. Students relate certain spelling of words to the Harry Potter knight bus story. Students express what exactly silent letters are and how to identify them.

Students explore the use of flow charts and cyclical diagrams. They discuss how to read the charts. Students produce a simple flow chart or diagram to explain a process. They investigate various methods used to present text.

First graders measure 10 different objects found in the classroom, including their own hands and feet, then record their findings. This is a fun lesson for students to experience measurement using a ruler and unifix cubes.

Pupils read short excerpts of material and are challenged to write a coherent summary of seventy words. They monitor their work for correct word limits and present their summaries to the class.

Learners read a variety of reading passages and articles. They investigate how to make implications and assumptions using the information provided.

Fifth graders use information from videos, picture books, and relatives' military backgrounds to write a short or extended message of gratitude on a greeting card for local veterans.

Pupils use a word bank to help them do their writing and reading. The idea is that they would keep adding to this list as they move from grade to grade.

Students review the information they gathered on different websites to write a poem about spiders. They use other websites to gain more information if needed. They share their poem with the class.

Students incorporate the knowledge they learned about spiders on the ISM Web site, Spider Collection, and other Web sites they viewed on spiders to write a rhyming poem (possibly choosing a poem type illustrated here) about an aspect of...

Students create a timeline.  In this history of chess instructional activity, students use the Internet to examine the chess history timeline.  Students read books on the history of chess, answer questions and create a timeline...

Students explore how editorials use various devices to convey a message to a reader. They select key news topics from 2002 and write their own editorials.

Bilateral suborbital hematoma? Call an audible? 404? Have fun with “the twittering or warbling of birds,” or as 14th century French speakers would say, have fun with “jargon.” Groups match specialized jargon with plain speech, decode...

The book Fortunately provides an excellent opportunity to discuss prefixes and suffixes as they appear in context. The class goes over a list of prefixes and suffixes with the teacher. They then write two sentences; the first...

Learners read Spelldown, by Becky Mushko and consider how it portrays the Appalachian community. They define and discuss vocabulary presented in the story and write a comparison/contrast paper analyzing two of the story's characters. The...