Curated OER
Working on the Slant
Compare and contrast a major news story from various newspapers. How does the perspective change? Are certain things included in some of the stories and left out of others? Have pupils complete a graphic organizer to compare how...
Curated OER
Short and Sweet Science
Readers learn how to summarize scientific text and evaluate the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in writing summaries. They select science-related articles you've pulled and collected from the New York Times and, with a partner,...
Curated OER
What's the Author's Purpose?
What is the author's purpose for sharing an autobiography? Start this lesson plan with the short story provided about getting pulled over by a police officer. Then, discuss the acronym PIES and how it stands for the four main reasons an...
Curated OER
Research for State Brochures
Ask your young researchers to create a state brochure by working together to research Alaska and then use facts they have learned from the novel Woodsong to create a travel brochure about Alaska. Pupils must include a bibliography and...
Curated OER
Using Poetry As Inspiration for Composition
A reading of Robert Frost’s "The Road Not Taken" launches an interdisciplinary study of the connection between the meters of a poem and a melody. After identifying the number of beats in each line of the poem, young musicians use...
Curated OER
Triangular Trade
This lesson has it all, primary source documents, an interactive trade game, clear teacher background information, and sailing to the West Indies chance cards. You will play, trade, and live out the experiences of early colonists in...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Letter Recognition: Poetry Pen
It's always nice to have a great idea and all the tools to make it happen. The class can use these nursery rhyme and alphabet cards to teach each other letter recognition and letter sound correspondence. There is a full set of alphabet...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Letter-Sound Dominoes
What do dominoes and phonemes have in common? Quite a bit in this engaging phonics game! Each domino has a letter on one side and an image on the other. Everything you need is here; partners place the starting domino on the table then...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Rhyming A-LOT-OH!
Rhymes are a great way to help your scholars with phonemic awareness and word relationships. Kids work with partners to match cards from a stack to their rhyming counterparts on a game board. There are six different boards, so this will...
Curated OER
The Workshop
Kids take a critical look at each other's work in order to understand the editing process while providing constructive suggestions. This handout really sets learners up to successfully offer constructive critique to their peers. Helpful...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 11: Beginnings
Every good novel needs a solid beginning! Setting the stage can have your budding authors stumped, so use this lesson to get them thinking. After examining the plot rollercoaster image (included) they consider the four places their story...
Curated OER
You Are What You Eat
Youngsters listen to the story of Gregory the Terrible Eater and write a similar story using the same pattern. In the new book, Herman is requested to eat things that are nouns. They must supply the correct part of speech for the class...
Curated OER
Privilege and Power
Middle schoolers examine the distribution of power and privilege in their own towns, provinces, and their country. They create a story based on a famous subject from one of Robert Harris' paintings. By the end of these lessons, learners...
Curated OER
The Big Bad Wolf and the Friendly Letter
A terrific presentation on the teaching of friendly letter writing. Learners engage in a PowerPoint that is part story, part writing exercise. There are lots of great tips on how to construct a letter, and young writers are encouraged to...
Curated OER
Traditions and Languages of Three Native Cultures: Tlingit, Lakota, and Cherokee
Young scholars explore the connections between tradition and language. They examine the environment, history and culture of the Tlingit, Lakota and Cherokee tribes and identify the importance of maintaining languages for oral traditions.
Curated OER
Julie of the Wolves
Have your class practice their comprehension skills using this resource. After reading Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, learners engage in cause and effect activities, identify story elements and figurative language, and...
Curated OER
Fragments, Comma Splices, and Fused Sentences
This excellent resource has the audience focus on ways to create complete sentences. As the presentation progresses, they see many examples of sentences that are fragments, run-ons, and ones that are punctuated incorrectly. They then...
Curated OER
Preposition House
Identify and use prepositions to describe how objects relate to one another. Each child draws a house and then draws items in, around, on, and under the house to demonstrate different prepositions. Written descriptions accompany their...
Curated OER
A or An or The?
Here is an online interractive learning exercise that invites learners to fill in 16 blanks in a paragraph by choosing the appropriate article to make each sentence grammatically correct. They choose each answer from a multiple choice list.
Curated OER
Was - Were - Wasn't - Weren't
Check out this cute online interactive worksheet. Pupils fill in the blank for each of the 10 sentences with one of four helping or linking verbs. Verbs focused on include was, were, wasn't, and weren't.
Curated OER
Quantifiers
Many people, regardless of their age, confuse similar words. Little or few, much or many, some or any...the list goes on and on! Use this online resource to test your learners' ability to choose the correct quantifier. Consider using...
Curated OER
Irregular Past Tense
This learning exercise provides extensive experience with the past tense of the verbs begin, drink, ring, sink, sing, and swim. Your young grammarians write the past tense form of each one, use the past tense of each verb in a complete...
Curated OER
Strong Descriptive Writing: James and the Giant Peach
Support your writers! Clear procedures and appropriate support make this a superb resource for elementary writing instruction. Ready your class to compose original descriptive paragraphs inspired by the episode in Roald Dahl's James and...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 17: Novel, Take 2
It's all about using peer resources in this writing process lesson, which includes a fantastic novel revision worksheet packet. Learners have read a partner's story draft the night before, and groups have a "lightning round of praise"...