Students recognize the short vowel a in written and spoken language. Through matching activities, they discriminate the short vowel /a/ from other vowel phonemes. Students associate the phoneme with its letter representation and identify...

Students recognize phonemes that correspond with the letters in the alphabet. They focus on identifying the short a, /a/ sound. They examine the way their mouths move when making the short a sound mimicking a baby's cry. In given...

Old MacDonald had a ... dragon? A shared reading of this funny take on the classic children's song engages beginning readers as they learn about phonemes and alliteration.

I or me? Are your middle school grammarians struggling with pronoun case? Try this trick. Instruct your learners to look right before or right after the pronoun choice for the words and, or, nor. Have them cover the conjunction and the...

Students recognize and spell sets of words with r-controlled vowels. They become familiar with r-controlled spelling patterns.

Invite your kindergarteners to explore sound and hearing. Using film canisters, or containers, filled with items from the story "Are You My Mother?" they will predict what the objects were from the story. Tip: you could create a...

An easy way to introduce numerical patterns, these activities can be made simpler by using addition, or more difficult with division, fractions, and percentages. Children examine patterns and determine the missing number in the sequence....

What is blank verse? Iambic pentameter? Meter? Use the attached document to review these ideas with your middle schoolers. This plan has learners get up and stomp to iambic pentameter, which is a fun change from just clapping the...

Students work cooperatively to choose a theme, write a story, and produce a web site to display this story in this middle-level lesson on the career of a web designer. This excellent lesson ends with an organized, web site launch party.

Focusing on correct grammar usasge as well as the concept of language evolution, this conventions lesson prompts middle and high schoolers to examine the structure of sentences and word classes (parts of speech). Use the three activites...

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...

Young readers consider text-to-self connections. Learners discover the text-to-self connection as they read Flora's Box by Tina Althaide. They practice high frequency words, prepositions, and 1:1 correspondence.

Providing both a history of English before England (Sino-Tibetan, Finno-Ugric, Hamido-Semitic, Indo-European) and a history of English in England, this presentation includes charts and many examples of the changes in the English language...

Using the poems "First Snow" by Ted Kooser and "Eating Alone" by Yi-Young Lee (or other suggested poems by Robert Frost or Sara Teasdale), middle schoolers search for examples of figurative language. Guide your learners by discussing...

Young grammarians demonstrate their understanding of pronoun reference. They read a series of sentences and choose the best correction for the underlined words. A link to an interactive version of the exercise is provided.

Melody, solo, melody. After a discussion of the structure of a jazz tune and of improvisation as it relates to jazz, young musicians listen to a jazz CD and then, using 2-track stereo digital audio software, place and label markers in an...

Sinking ships, construction paper, coordinate planes, sounds like fun day in math class. Play the game Battleship with your class and reinforce the concept of graphing ordered pairs.

Students identify the /e/ sound in spoken words in this lesson. They say a tongue twister with words emphasizing the short /e/ sound. They then listen to the story "Peg the Hen" and do an "I Can't Hear You" motion whenever they hear...

Students observe that sometimes the letter "c" is a copycat letter and sometimes acts like a "k" or an "s" like in the words "cat" and "race". They use Elkonin letter boxes and letters to spell words as they are called out by the...

Ninth graders appreciate the value of words, review the parts of speech, create original poetry, shape the poem, and write an explanation of the images he/she has created.

Students respond to the story of Little Red Riding Hood. In this Red Riding Hood lesson, students retell and discuss story elements.  Students practice phonic sounds.  Students role play, make predictions, use picture...

This simple presentation is designed for very young readers who are just starting to learn their consonant blend sounds. Pictures of a shark, a chicken, a whale, and a moth help introduce these blends.

Students identify the digraphs in written and spoken language. After a brief discussion of the combinations of /c/ and /h/ that comprise th /ch/ digraph, students practice identifying initial and final placement of the digraph /ch/ in...

Students study the /a/ phoneme by determining how the mouth move when it makes the sound by imitating a sneeze. They recite a tongue twister, practice writing the lowercase "a" and listen to a story while identifying the letter sound....