After enjoying the story of Fox by Margaret Wild, students will work in small groups to generate possible themes that the book is trying to teach its readers. Themes will be shared whole-group, and a class list of the best themes will be...

Inspired by the picture book How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long, an enthusiastic tale that explores the pros and cons of being a pirate, students will research an interesting job and prepare to write about it. While researching, the...

In this lesson, students will describe a setting, attempting to set a mood for their readers in two paragraphs. Borrowing a technique from Stephen Kramer's two-page introduction to Caves, they will begin with a paragraph that explains...

Inspired by Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi & Ron Barrett, learners will brainstorm adjectives that center around food that might fall from the sky. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods will be brainstormed. They will then...

Using "Have You Seen My Cat?" students will learn to recognize high-frequency words. There are supplementary materials provided, as well as several links to useful websites.

After reading the picture book Come on, Rain by Karen Hesse, which discusses how the weather both helps and harms the community, students bring tools from home to represent what their parents do for a living. They will present these...

This comprehensive teacher's guide for the book "Zathura" by Chris Van Allsburg provides us with an opportunity to examine how writers blend scientific information with a fictional story.

Students will brainstorm adjectives to describe the American Flag and will write two descriptive sentences for homework. Students will also create star art to accompany their writing to show the relationship between words and pictures...

In this activity, students will be able to gather information from provided resources to answer a question. Using the book "Owls", the teacher will read the book while asking guiding questions. After the book, the students will have to...

This lesson is based on two narrative picture books that can be compared and contrasted: When I was Five by Arthur Howard and Jamie Lee Curtis' When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old's Memoir of her Youth. Students will need to think about...

Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of the picture book, Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. This seven-step, teacher-created activity was inspired by the NNWP's Going Deep with Compare and...

A 2,000-mile trek across a continent-with no idea what awaits you on the other side. Tell your students to put on their traveling shoes and prepare for the journey of their lives! In this lesson, students compare imagined travel...

After discussing the picture book Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, students brainstorm the meaning of teacher-selected words. Once the students have a clear understanding of the words, they create a...

In this instructional activity, the book entitled The Greedy Triangle, written by Marilyn Burns, is shared. After sharing this read-aloud book, students will illustrate pictures that incorporate the triangle. Then will write three...

During this lesson, students will visit Internet sites to research facts about owls and food chains. They will use this information to complete a picture of an owl food chain, dissect owl pellets, and write a class book about owls.