Curated OER
When A Story Met A Sandwich
How is a story like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Use making a sandwich as a metaphor to remind your writers that a good, solid beginning, a rich and rewarding middle, and an ending that brings everything together spices up a...
Curated OER
Host a Fin-tastic Friendship Festival!
Students read the book Fin-tastic Friendship Book and do activities related to friendship. For this friendship lesson, students read the book given, and do activities like character building, fortune telling, and making friendship...
Curated OER
Using Words to Work Things Out
Students explore appropriate ways to communicate feelings. In this character development lesson, students listen to Hands are not for Hitting and several other books about expressing emotions appropriately. Students observe puppet...
Curated OER
Character Building-Brick Wall
Students develop and recognize positive traits and random acts of kindness through modeling, positive reinforcement, class discussions and activities and charting the traits. This continues throughout an entire year.
Curated OER
Describe a Journey
Learners describe the sensory experience of a character's journey in an essay. In this precise details writing instructional activity, students explain the effects on the senses of weather, time of day, landscape, and other...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Poems that Tell a Story: Narrative and Persona in the Poetry of Robert Frost
Dig in deeper with Robert Frost's, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Learners will read and discuss poems by Robert Frost and learn the meaning of terms such as narrative and personal. They journal, collaborate, and present poetry...
Curated OER
Building Character Adjectives Vocabulary
Students practice conversation skills while also focusing on improving their command of refined character description. They use a worksheet imbedded in this plan that has them select adjectives that describe their best friend.
Curated OER
Strega Nona Lesson Plan
Pupils explore story characters as well as cause and effect. In this Strega Nona lesson plan, students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United...
Curated OER
Character Traits in Gingerbread Baby #5
Learners are read the story "Gingerbread Baby". They draw or download the characters and cut them out. They create character profiles for each character based on how they acted in the book. They act out a scene from the story as well.
Curated OER
Memorial Day
As a way to understand Memorial Day, build citizenship, practice vocabulary, and discuss current international conflicts, learners create their own Memorial Day. They design their own memorial after learning about the various types of...
Curated OER
Build Mastery: Visualization
What do you see? Young reader tap into the visualization process as they listen to or read a fiction story and fill out a graphic organizer. Model this first with a think-aloud, showing scholars how you visualize a familiar story. For...
Spreading Gratitude Rocks
Gratitude Quote Poster
According to Cicero, "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others." Pupils explore similar inspirational quotes after watching a time-lapse video. Next, scholars interpret one of the quotes by creating...
EngageNY
Building Background Knowledge About Physical Environment: What Makes it Hard for Some People to Get Books?
How far would your pupils go to be able to have access to books? Revisit Heather Henson and David Small's That Book Woman and challenge class members to take on the role of Cal or the Book Woman. By putting themselves in someone else's...
Curated OER
Making Magical Creatures Talk
Invite your young writers to take the reins with writing dialogue. Using two characters of their own creation, kids work with partners and then individually to write short conversations.
Curated OER
Build Masters: Identifying Details
Find key details in books using this note card strategy. Each reader gets six cards with the classic who, what, where, when, why, and how detail prompts. After they read the book, they choose a card and locate a key detail answering the...
US Institute of Peace
Making a Difference: Becoming a Peacebuilder
Being an agent of change is no easy task! What are some of the common challenges that peacebuilders face every day? The 14th portion in a series of 15 explores the lives of peacebuilders. Grouped pupils discuss these challenges before...
Candlewick Press
A Classroom Guide to Peter H. Reynolds's Creatrilogy
Help young readers find, identify, and use their voices with a set of empowering activities based on Peter H. Reynolds' trilogy of books. Sky Color, Ish, and The Dot focus on recognizing moods and treating each other kindly, and their...
Curated OER
A Monument to Value
Students build a monument to represent trustworthiness. In this trustworthiness lesson plan, students discuss traits related to trustworthiness, suggest images that represent trustworthiness, and build a monument with those images.
Curated OER
Helping Others
Learners explore community service. In this character development and community instructional activity, students sing a song based on the fable The Lion and the Mouse. Learners participate in a discussion about kindness, and generate...
Curated OER
A Friend Is...
Young scholars investigate characteristics of friendship through literature and interviews then share their ideas through posters. They role play scenarios related to friends and problems they might have. This lesson reflects cross...
Curated OER
Trip to a Nursing Home
Students participate in a field trip to a nursing home. In this character education lesson, students visit a local nursing home and bring the residents cards or crafts that they made.
Scholastic
Literacy Activities for Any Time
As the title suggests, this packet is loaded with activities that can be used at any time. The common element in all the exercises is that they are connected to books by Dr. Seuss.
Curated OER
Holiday Cookie Exchange
Students build community with cookies. For this service learning lesson, students make holiday cookies to share with the custodial maintenance staff and cafeteria staff in their school.
Curated OER
Advocacy, Recognition, Prevention Through Art and Health
Students analyze how the environment and family history impacts personal health. In this personal health lesson, students discuss cancer and survey the school community about the disease. Students create a bulletin board about cancer and...