The Old Man and the Sea: Magic Squares

Immaculate, accumulation, dissipation. Vocabulary drawn from chapter 16 of James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, can prove to be challenge for readers. To help kids understand the meaning of these words and what they add to the...

Turn Pride and Prejudice into a math activity with a magic squares lesson. Kids read nine character traits and pair them to a list of the book's characters in order to complete the activity and find the magic number.

Vocabulary really adds up with magic squares! Using words from Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori, kids line up words and definitions to come up with the same sum across and down the square.

While music lyrics are often used to teach literary elements, the richness of this resource comes from the wealth of exercises, activities, and support materials provided in the packet.  Although designed for gifted learners, the...

As part of a study of Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing, class members create vocabulary squares for words drawn from the story.

Need an extra challenge for your best readers? Check out a unit that uses Hannah Webster Foster’s epistolary novel, The Coquette, published in 1797, as the anchor text. The resource is packed with project ideas; each with its...

Before getting too far into The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, support your learners by introducing and practicing some vocabulary that might be unfamiliar to them. The vocabulary exercise here includes 16 words from the third and fourth...

As part of their study of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, readers engage in a magic squares vocabulary activity.

As part of a study of vocabulary found in Elie Wiesel's Night, readers complete a magic square using the provided words and their definitions.

Paul Langan's novel The Bully is the core text in a six-session unit plan that engages high schoolers in an in-depth examination of bullying and its effects on bullies, victims, and bystanders. The richly textured and carefully...