What makes you happy? What makes you sad? Connecting words to feelings enriches vocabulary and helps with concept development.
Using Personal Connections to Build an Understanding of Emotions
Thundering Tall Tales: Using Read-Aloud as a Springboard to Writing
Imagination and application are key to this tall tale lesson in which students take what they know about tall tales to spin a yarn of their own.
Developing Students' Critical Thinking Skills Through Whole-Class Dialogue
"That's my position and I'm sticking to it!" After reading about the Korean War, students will take a position in response to an open-ended question, support their position, and evaluate that support.
Pourquoi Stories: Creating Tales to Tell Why
Where did the stars come from? What makes lightning and thunder? Pourquoi tales are narratives developed by various cultures around the world to explain natural phenomena. Students study three tales and learn about their cultures of origin, then work cooperatively to write and present an original pourquoi tale.
Artistic Elements: Exploring Art Through Descriptive Writing
Paint a vivid picture in your reader's mind with good descriptive writing! Artwork provides the perfect starting point for practicing descriptive writing that conveys color, shape, line, and mood.
Predicting and Gathering Information With Nonfiction Texts
Students take a walk on the wild side when they develop an understanding of nonfiction texts with hands-on experiences and intense analysis.
Sequencing: A Strategy to Succeed at Reading Comprehension
Did Paul Bunyan gouge out the Grand Canyon before or after he dug the Great Lakes? Students create a life-sized timeline showing the sequence of events in this tall tale.
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.
Demonstrating Comprehension Through Journal Writing
Students demonstrate comprehension by responding to open-ended questions based on the Newbery Honor book Mr. Popper's Penguins, and then draw from the text and their personal experiences to create journals.
Phonics In Context
Use an engaging, authentic text to build students' knowledge of phonic elements and give them a taste of Japanese culture.
Learning Vocabulary Down By the Bay
Students sing a popular children's song, follow along with a picture book that contains the lyrics and illustrations, and then participate in activities to reinforce learning of the vocabulary words.
Sentence Quest: Using Parts of Speech to Write Descriptive Sentences
Students learn about sentences by listing verbs, nouns, and adjectives. They use word cards to create descriptive sentences and work in groups to create the longest sentences they can.
Name Talk: Exploring Letter-Sound Knowledge in the Primary Classroom
Students demonstrate their letter/sound knowledge by working with name cards and sharing observations about their classmates' names, giving teachers an opportunity to assess knowledge in a meaningful context.
Developing a Living Definition of Reading in the Elementary Classroom
Using the guiding question, "What is reading?" students interact with a variety of texts as they uncover the skills necessary to interact with texts and develop a definition of reading.
Fairy Tale Autobiographies
Students read and analyze fairy tales from several cultures, identifying common elements. Choosing common situations, students write original fairy tales, using picture books as models and a peer review process.
Poetry Plus! Creating 21st Century Poems with Web Tools
This lesson encourages students to immerse themselves in poetry as they share their original poems orally and digitally with published poets and peers nationwide.
Reading Movies and TV: Learning the "Language" of Moving-Image Texts
Introduce students to the idea that movies and TV have their own language and grammar, which gives them special ways of telling their stories.
Blogging in the Primary Grades? Yes, Indeed!
Give students an authentic reason to read and write by researching blogs written by their peers around the world and then writing their own.
Bringing Economic Vocabulary to Life Through Video Posters
Imagine if vocabulary could come alive with the click of a button! Students create video posters to demonstrate knowledge of new economics vocabulary.
Inspire Healthful Reading Using Unconventional Texts
This minilesson encourages children to seek out and appropriately react to nutrition labels and to make healthy food choices, integrating science, math, health, and literacy.