As you come to an end in your alphabet study, use these strategies to examine the letter y. Scholars examine the letter shape and listen to you pronounce the /y/ sound. Use these tips to explain how you do it as they try. Can they...

What words end with /x/? Unite several alphabet concepts as scholars learn all about the letter x. After identifying it, they listen to you pronounce the /x/ sound and try it themselves (use these tips to explain how you do this)....

Develop readers’ awareness of the visual power of language with a guided imagery exercise. Set the stage and create the mood with dim lights, soft music and potpourri. Then read the provided section of Bud, Not Buddy. Next, invite...

Be bold and never fearful! Tempt your scholars with an Anticipation Guide for Measure for Measure. Before reading Shakespeare’s problem play, class members label a series of statements as either true or false in their opinion. (It’s okay...

Provide parents with the tools they need to bridge the summer learning gap with this collection of fun activities. Whether it's creating an alphabet poster with illustrations for each letter, playing a game of sight word concentration,...

Bingo! Combine the thrill of bingo with Lois Lowry's The Giver in a fun vocabulary instructional activity. Kids write selected vocabulary words from the novel onto a bingo chart, and then listen for the correct definitions in order...

If you'd like your class to write in varied sentence patterns, use a worksheet focused on adverb clauses to enhance their writing. After reading a short explanation and example of adverb clauses, young grammarians underline the part of...

Shelves filled with heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. Bouquets of red roses. Racks of romantic cards. Stores are preparing for Valentine's Day. Has the holiday become too commercialized? That is the question asked by a lesson designed...

Analyze characters and stories to identify stereotyping. Learners will examine the concept of character gender to evaluate bias in classroom story books. They are asked to read a story or play and change the gender of the character to...

Students research dinosaurs using text, software, and Internet resources while role playing as paleontologists. They place the information from their research in databases and publish an illustrated page about their findings.

After reading Julius Caesar 1.2 and 1.3, break your class into pairs for this role-play. Each pair will receive one of four prompts (or more, if you create additional examples), in which one person tries to persuade the other to do...

Everyone can be an MVP! Young learners create their own baseball cards about themselves in this autobiographical lesson. They use information about their lives to create a baseball trading card. They make flash cards using baseball...

Learners practice using capital letters for proper nouns and adjectives. They play a matching game with word cards and correct paragraphs with incorrect capitalization, and edit their work with a partner.  

Partners choose, research, and analyze fictional or historical characters and design character life boxes to represent them. They also compose a rhyme royal, which they understand inductively by deconstructing examples. Based largely on...

Cultivate young performers while teaching them about helping one another with this interactive storytelling lesson. Elementary schoolers read or listen to the story The Little Red Hen by Mike Lockett and then act out the story while...

Shakespeare can be a challenge to the most skilled high school readers. This selection of short answer questions helps increase understanding of the character, Katherine, by addressing dialogue, tone of voice, making inferences, and...

Is there a difference between writing errors and employing rhetorical devices? This presentation argues that there is a difference, but it might be a finer point than one would think. Addressing double entendre, oxymorons, and parody,...

Teach young adults how to become advocates for their privacy in the modern information age. In a series of five lessons, learners explore their beliefs and opinions about privacy vs. the actual laws regarding who has the right to access...

Scholars practice identifying and counting syllables. Images of classmates are cut out and placed on a chart. Learners clap and count the syllables in each child's name. They finish by writing the number of syllables under the...

Here is another fun and engaging way to help youngsters build phonological awareness. In pairs, they use the provided picture cards to sound out segments of words. As they slide the picture together they say a segment of the...

The Iditarod Trail and the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race are the focus of a comprehension assessment. Readers must identify the main idea of the passage, draw inferences, define words using context clues, and identify the organizational...

Practice punctuation as well as capitalization with a straightforward grammar exercise. Learners determine if several sentences use proper grammar or not and then write a sentence using correct capitalization and grammar.

Make a game out of word parts. Pupils work in pairs to advance along the board. One partner reads a sentence from a card, and the other identifies the correct affix that fits with a word in that sentence.

Bingo! Find five in a row with a set of fun and creative bingo graphic organizers. The sheets feature shapes such as leaves, monkeys, dinosaurs, fire trucks, as well as symbols for Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's Day.