Fourth graders practice using effective listening skills as they listen to oral poetry readings.

Reading aloud can be scary, but it's an important way to build oral fluency. Break the class into groups of four or five learners. Each learner will roll a cube to determine which poem they read aloud to their small group. Feel free to...

Pull quotes from a text and craft responses to the quotes you chose. First, read a  short excerpt from Mary Claire Wilfert's oral history. Then, read the contemporary poem "Robert's Cove," pulling quotes and writing responses as...

It’s poetry T.I.M.E! Individuals use the T.I.M.E. format (T = Title, thought, and theme;  I = Imagery and figurative language; M = music and sound; E = emotion) to study a poet, collect poems that have a similar theme, and create a...

Really? Rapping The Odyssey? Really. A discussion of the oral tradition of story telling and its links to Epic poetry sets the stage for a series of activities that encourage improvisation to integrate music into other classrooms....

Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...

Engage your class with a poetry slam. A poem is read aloud using a podcast. A few days are provided for learners to listen to the podcast and make a slam (connection) between the original poem and another poem. After everyone has had a...

Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

Inntroduce primary learners to essential critical reading strategies with an activity based on James Reeves' poem, "The Wind."  Learners listen as the poem is read, first as a riddle, and then re-read with the title visible. The...

Pupils complete a series of activities to discover life in ancient Egypt. They create want ads for pyramid workers, design vocabulary flash cards and dictionaries, and research famous Egyptians. They also research the "Curse of the...

What is poetry? Does hip-hop qualify as poetry? Do Shakespeare's monologues qualify as poetry? Class members grapple with these questions as they examine the poetic elements and themes presented in different texts. Groups of four study...

Explore rhyming in this phonemic awareness and French instructional activity. Listen to the poem "J'Adore la Pizza" by Karen Kransky and identify rhyming words. Compare grapheme spelling patterns with like phonemes, and sort word cards...

Here is a unit designed to support English language development. Scholars speak, move, and write to learn more about topics that focus on community and local concepts. The series of lessons aids to reinforce concepts...

Complete a number of activities in this group of lessons about dental health and teeth. Your elementary students will like the projects like making teeth models, reading a book, writing poetry and diagramming teeth.

Students expand their understanding and appreciation for poetry. In this poetry unit lesson, students complete 5 unit sections of multiple day activities to learn about poetry and its devices or forms.

Students read and analyze several highly symbolic poems. They create their own symbolic poem, read it to the class, and discuss whether they can guess any hidden meanings.

Haikus by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki are used as models for a brief lecture on the importance of poetry in Japan's history and the structure of this poetic form. Students then go on a nature walk, record impressions, and return to the...

Young scholars explore the importance of learning to read. They work with other students to create audiobooks to share with younger young scholars, or classes.

The photograph, Nellie and her Italian Soda is viewed and discussed by the class. They are instructed to use the photograph as inspiration to write a poem about non-events, or things that are beautiful in every day life. Pupils use...

English language development lessons are brought to you in poems, picture cards, and grand discussions in a We Can Do It! themed unit. Topics of discussion include daily challenges, parts of a whole, words that describe what we...

Is The Iliad part of your curriculum? Check out a resource that offers something for those new to teaching the classic and those with lots of experience using Homer's epic. Plot summaries, discussion questions, activities abound in...

Students discuss how oral interpretation varies with prose and poetry. They select a piece of prose or poetry to present to the class, and then assess each other on the organization and delivery of their speech as well as on their...

Second graders review the format of a statement, question and exclamatory sentences. After being read a poem twice, they discuss the concept of fluency when it comes to reading them. As a class, they read a different poem with each...

Students think about and evaluate the meaning of a poem. It also encourages students to be original and creative in their thinking as they read, analyze and illustrate their story.