ArtsNow
Arts Now Learning: My Sound Is the Best! [Pdf]
For this lesson, students will use music as an impetus for stating and supporting opinions. They will compose an opinion poster based on a narrative about a train using percussion instruments. This will involve group work which can lead...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: I Wanna What?
This lesson is centered on word choice and vocabulary and the book, I Wanna Iguana, by Karen Kaufman Orloff. Young learners learn to grasp the difference between begging and persuading and apply this knowledge to their own persuasive texts.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Antonyms & Onomatopoeia
After reading the book I Stink! by Kate McMullan, students look at the structure of this "guess who I am" book as well as some similar stories. Then students complete a graphic organizer and write their own guess-who stories.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: If You Give a Student an Animal
For this lesson plan, the book If You Give a Moose a Muffin, written by Laura Numeroff, is used as a mentor text for word choice. The content focus of the lesson is to teach the students to take ownership of scientific and descriptive...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: The Noun Game for Kids
Students use this noun game to generate three interesting nouns to use as they write an original story.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Borrowing From Books
Six mini-lessons teach young writers how to borrow ideas or patterns from popular children's books to use in their Writing Workshop pieces. Text ideas and student samples are provided.
University of Oregon
Pizzaz, Creative Writing & Storytelling: Tongue Twisters
This PIZZAZ (People Interested in Zippy and ZAny Zcribbling) lesson plan will engage students in writing tongue twisters. Examples of tongue twisters are provided. A template is also included as a graphic organizing support for students.
Other
Castle Technology: Compare and Contrast: A Web Quest for Grade Two
This activity for young readers includes step-by-step teacher directions, student directions, resources, and rubrics. Students read or listen to two or more versions of a fairy tale and then work in groups to update the fairy tale to a...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Choosing the Right Book: Strategies for Beginning Readers
Students make purposeful choices for their reading materials, thinking about their reasons for reading a book and using strategies to match books to their abilities.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Writing Workshop: Helping Writers Choose and Focus on a Topic
Students engage in writing workshop, using a timeline to focus in on and write about a specific event.
International Reading Association
Reading Online: Children's Creating Artists' Books
Do you struggle with reluctant readers? Here are great ideas about integrating reading and visual creativity. This is a effective way to use student interest by creating an artist's book project.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Self Portraits: "I Come From" Poems
In this lesson, When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant Mentor and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox are used as mentor texts to help students realize what are important in the characters' lives and in their own...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Color Personification Poems
In this activity, Hailstones and Halibut Bones, a book written by Mary O'Neill and Red Sings, and From Treetops: a Year in Colors, a book by Joyce Sidman, are used as mentor texts. Students will brainstorm to collect different...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Serendipitous & Interesting Story Titles
In this lesson plan, The Paper Bag Princess, a book written by Robert Munsch, is used as a mentor text. Young scholars will reflect on how nouns can sometimes be used as interesting adjectives. Students will collect these ideas in their...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Three Serendipitous Nouns
For this lesson, the book entitled A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink: What Is a Noun? (Words Are Categorical), written by Brian P. Cleary, is used as the mentor text. After learning the basic definition of noun, a person, place, thing, or...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Story Starters: Intriguing Titles
In this lesson, an interactive link included to help generate ideas for stories. A button is clicked and a topic is given. In a writer's notebook or journal, each student will use the topic given and develop it. [Requires Adobe Reader.]
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Writing for Math Class: Follow the Path of Five Dollars
For this lesson, Pat Brisson's book Benny's Pennies is used as a mentor text. Students will discover ways to spend money that meets specific criteria. Students must explain their process for their spending choices, and then they must...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Literature Circles With Primary Students, Self Selected Reading
Learners respond to self-selected books in journals and talk about their books daily in small groups. The teacher guides students by offering suggestions and writing with them in dialogue journals.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Exploring Before, During, After Sequencing
From Read-Write-Think, here is a three-day lesson plan in which a class collaborates to produce a book, focusing on carving a jack-o-lantern. The emphasis is on teaching the skill of sequencing events.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Drawing and Writing Stories
Online lesson plan which allows elementary students to us the technique of drawing as a tool to create meaningful writing skills in fiction.
Harold D. Underdown
Early Reader Series: Targeting the Emergent Reader
An informational article concerning the "emergent reader" (child who has just learned to read). Provides information about writing for emergent readers, educating emergent readers, and serving as an editor for emergent literature.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Question and Answer Books
Beginning writers work through a Writing Workshop format to create Question and Answer books. A series of mini-lessons, graphic organizers, possible texts, and samples of student work are all provided.
Other
Trelease on Reading: "The Read Aloud Handbook," Ch.6
Author Jim Trelease presents ideas about how to make books and reading more appealing to children, which helps to raise reading rates and levels. Read these excerpts from his book on this topic.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!
Through the story, Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come, students find out about Henry and his new kindergarten class. As a class, they write about what it is like in kindergarten class.