Curated OER
"Memories of Mom" Memento
Students brainstorm a list of writing topics for a "Memories of Mom" book, choose one of the topics as the subject of a daily essay and combine a week of daily essays into a book to give their mothers for Mother's Day.
Curated OER
Dr. Seuss and Universal Themes
Discover some of the themes of Dr. Seuss's major books. They see that despite being written for young people, Dr. Seuss' books contain powerful messages and important themes.
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
From Ben’s Pen to Our Lives
What would Ben do? Jumping off from the pseudonymous letters Ben Franklin fooled his older brother into publishing when he was still a teenager, young literary lovers dive into acting, writing, and addressing a local issue with wit and...
Curated OER
The Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs: Rhyming Words
Readers explore rhyming words. They will use the story The Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs to identify rhyming words. Then they will create their own lists of rhyming words. In the end, they will be able to come up with words that rhyme...
Curated OER
Pink and Say
Read Pink and Say and discuss the Civil War with your upper elementary learners. They create a KWL about the Civil War and record words relating to the Civil War as they read the book. Then they work in groups to create an ABC...
Curated OER
Become a Character: Adjectives, Character Traits, and Perspective
Students use an online chart to match the character traits of a character in a book they are reading with specific actions the character takes. Students then work in pairs to "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe...
Anti-Defamation League
The Hate U Give
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas became a quick hit in the young adult literature genre before its adaptation in the 2018 film of the same name. Use a thorough lesson, discussion guide, and series of activities to discuss the social...
Curated OER
A PLAY ON WORDS
After making predictions about Janell Cannon's story Verdi, middle schoolers read through the book and make a new list of descriptions, personality traits, etc. They select an animal and write a narrative story about the animal, paying...
Curated OER
"Ing" Words as Descriptors
This clever activity has your students listen to story about bugs, work together to brainstorm list of "ing" words that describe bugs, create t-chart of words, choose words to place in poem template to create class poem about bugs, and...
Curated OER
Reading Olympics
Celebrate the joy of reading with activities that center on having fun with books. The teacher creates a variety of "Reading Olympics" categories for the class to compete in, including who can find the longest word, or create the longest...
Scholastic
Quick as a Cricket Lesson Plan
Teaching young learners about similes is easy as pie with this primary grade language arts instructional activity. Following a class reading of the children's book, Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, young readers learn the...
Curated OER
The Green Truck Garden Giveaway
Students read "The Green Truck Garden Giveaway" and explore the hobby of gardening. After observing illustrations in the book, students predict possible events in the story. They discuss gardening and write a story about a community...
Curated OER
Fiction and Nonfiction
Your emerging readers know not to judge a book by its cover, but they can categorize these titles into either fiction or nonfiction. There are four book covers pictured here, and scholars record the titles under the corresponding text...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Wheels Go Around: Challenge Activities (Theme 7)
Wheels go around is the theme of this series of challenge activities. Extend learning of making predictions and the reading comprehension skill, cause and effect, through grand conversations, poster designing, and writing books.
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast Essays
One of these things is not like the other. But, so what? Why is it important to examine the similarities and differences between two entities? Here's a presentation that shows viewers how to go beyond a mere listing to create and...
Harper Collins
Every Thing On It Lessons and Activities
Honor the great poet, Shel Silverstein with eighteen activities and lessons showcasing his collection of poems from the book, Every Thing On It. Activities challenge scholars to rhyme words, make inferences, recite a poem, and...
Curated OER
The Gingerbread Friend Is Loose!
Students explore the story of the Gingerbread Man, and compare the story's neighbors and neighborhoods with those of their school. They bake Gingerbread Friends cookies, retell the story, take a neighborhood walk, and create a class book.
Curated OER
Dictionaries
Introduce your budding readers to the dictionary. They read a brief introduction on dictionary features, observing pictures and examples of one-syllable words they could find in a dictionary. Using the word list, they determine which...
Scholastic
Hill of Fire Teaching Plan
Some books are perfect for drawing connections between multiple subjects. The book Hill of Fire becomes the hub for three very different, yet related activity ideas. First the class hones their oral language skills by creating an...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Friends Together: Challenge Activities (Theme 4)
Friends are the overarching theme of this set of extension activities for more advanced learners. Kids complete a variety of different activities, such as putting together an alphabet book, writing about friends, creating books about...
Scholastic
Abe Lincoln Remembers Lesson Plan
Discover the life of Abraham Lincoln with help from the story Abe Lincoln Remembers by Ann Turner. After listening carefully, scholars reflect on what they deem as Lincoln's most influential life event and how it relates...
Peace Corps
What's Mongolia Really Like?
Understanding different cultural experiences is a challenging and worthwhile objective throughout grade and content levels. This lesson facilitates an appreciation of rural Mongolian life through a simulation of being a nomadic teen...
Curated OER
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Students explore the 5 themes of geography. In this cross curriculum literacy and geography lesson, students listen to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, and make a list of the needs of the people in Chewandswallow....
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Robots
Two activities work with a fiction and nonfiction book about robots‚—Robot Dreams by Sara Varon and Robot by Roger Bridgman. Scholars read each story, then build a robot out of found objects, examine robot sensors, and search for...