You're as cute as a bug. But are you really as cute as a bug? Bugs aren't cute! Idioms are fun nonliteral phrases that mean something different than the words they contain. Second graders learn about idioms as they read the book, More...

What a lovely way to incorporate artwork into your language arts lesson. View artwork in illustrated manuscript pages, depicting insects, animals, plants, flowers, and ornate writing in the Getty Museum. Practice using figurative...

Poe goes high tech with a lesson plan that asks high schoolers to use the internet and various apps as they read and analyze "The Masque of the Red Death." In addition to responding to comprehension questions in Quizlet, they use...

Learners illustrate a simile. In this figurative language lesson, second graders are introduced to similes. They read the story Quick as a Cricket and talk about the similes used. Everyone chooses a simile and draws a picture to go along...

Can three works of literature work together to establish and develop a common central idea? Put your thoughts into writing with a final assessment focused on a unit-long analysis of Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His...

What do a pair of stinky socks and a toy hamster have in common? The third lesson plan in an 11-part unit designed to accompany The Twits by Roald Dahl uses silly objects to teach about figurative language. Zany pranks and role play...

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...

True! Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" makes readers nervous. But how? Young scholars create a drawing while listening to a reading of Poe's eerie tale to understand how writers create the mood of their stories and what their writing style...

Is it do'nt or don't? How about doesn't or does'nt? A lesson on contractions helps learners identify, form, and use contractions. Components within the plan include direct instruction on decoding and encoding contractions, as well as...

Similes and metaphors make writing more beautiful and detailed, but can be a little harder to decipher during a first reading. Use a passage from The Man Who Loved Words to show young readers how to think through passages that...

Animals oftentimes elicit various characteristics which make them symbolic or representative of human feeling, action, or emotion. The class creates horse characters out of clay to show character action and symbolism. This is a great...

Students discover visual arts by creating sculptures in class. In this personal expression lesson, students research the Internet and examine different examples of modern sculptures and 3 dimensional art. Students utilize paper stock,...

Students investigate the uses of images, shapes and colors in classic art sculptures.  In this art analysis lesson, students observe Malagan Figures, a type of sculpture from New Guinea, and describe the different ideas and images...

Young scholars analyze visual arts by creating drawings in their classroom. In this art analysis lesson, students identify the paintings of Keith Haring by researching the web. Young scholars utilize paper and oil pastels to create...

"Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle?" Inspired by this quote from the award-winning novel written by Andrew Celements, this lesson allows children to invent their own...

Benjamin Franklin's famous aphorisms are a perfect time capsule of colonist values in the mid-18th century, as well as a clever reminder of the way life still works today. Middle and high schoolers select one aphorism to interpret...

Introduce your class to the delights of nonsense poetry and explore literary devices with the writing of Edward Lear. Learners identify rhyme and meter as well as figures of speech, alliteration, and onomatopoeia in "The Owl and the...

Fourth graders recognize and classify geometric figures. For this geometry lesson, 4th graders read the books Shape Up and The Greedy Triangle and prepare a short report on the shapes mentioned in the text. Students compare the...

Students explore the book Billy Brown and the Belly Button Beastie. In this verb, onomatopoeia, and syllable lesson, students pantomime verbs, read onomatopoeia from the story and clap out syllables. Students unscramble sentences from...

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" engages adolescents with its theme about the dangers of complete societal equality. Learners complete a graphic organizer to track literary elements in the story, as well as an inference...

Middle schoolers discover the cultural history of Egypt by illustrating Egyptian figures.  In this art history lesson, students analyze the Egyptian styles of figure drawings and emulate that by creating their own illustrations...

Learn about how the seeing eye dog program began with a reading lesson about Eva Moore's chapter book, Buddy, The First Seeing Eye Dog. With vocabulary words, discussion questions, and extension resources, the lesson is a...

Metaphors are word pictures, creating images in our brains that draw readers to consider how two seemingly unrelated items are alike. Poems by Langston Hughes, Margaret Atwood, and Naomi Shihad Nye provide learners with an opportunity to...

Young writers read excerpts from Gary Paulsen's memoir to identify figurative and literal language that contain sensory details. They determine which selections are examples of sensory language and fi the language is used literally or...