Students engage in a rich study of vocabulary words from the song "America the Beautiful," using music and art.
"America the Beautiful": Using Music and Art to Develop Vocabulary
Improving Fluency through Group Literary Performance
Students participate in shared reading, choral reading, and readers theater, using books by Bill Martin, Jr. Repeated readings and literary performances help students with their reading accuracy, expression, and rate.
Introducing the Venn Diagram in the Kindergarten Classroom
In this lesson, kindergarten students manipulate hula hoops and real objects, as they use Venn diagrams to problem solve, explore, and record information to share with others.
Designing Elements of Story in Little Blue and Little Yellow
In this series of four lessons, students will explore key elements of design in Little Blue and
Little Yellow to learn about setting, character relationships, and plot.
Four Simple Steps to Small-Group Guided Writing
Students will go batty about the three writing strategies they learn in this lesson centered on Nicola Davies' Bat Loves the Night.
Using Songwriting to Build Awareness of Beginning Letter Sounds
"Bessie bird lives in a barn" in this lesson in which students create alliterative animal songs to help them learn letter names and consonant sounds and build phonemic awareness.
The Big Green Monster Teaches Phonics in Reading and Writing
A big green monster helps students build their reading fluency and word recognition skills through choral reading, literacy center activities, and writing stories.
Teaching Shapes Using Read-Alouds, Visualization, and Sketch to Stretch
Visual clues in winter-themed books used in this lesson encourage students to make real-world math connections.
Using Greeting Cards to Motivate Students and Enhance Literacy Skills
Imagination and illustration are the key in this lesson in which students read and create their own greeting cards.
Shared Experiences, Individual Impressions: Buddies Create PowerPoint Stories
Stories and snapshots of school-related experiences are the perfect sources of inspiration for students as they create PowerPoint presentations with the help of an older student.
Phonic Generalizations in Chrysanthemum
Students learn about word families by reading Kevin Henkes's book Chrysanthemum, identifying words with certain vowel pair endings, and reading words with similar endings.
Bingo! Using Environmental Print to Practice Reading
The game Bingo is transformed in this lesson in which students use symbols and images to make connections to environmental print through the use of personalized Bingo cards.
Blast Off! Vocabulary Instruction Using a Virtual Moon Trip
3, 2, 1... Blast off! Students learn new vocabulary by taking a virtual field trip to the moon, read-alouds, creating a picture dictionary, and completing a final writing activity.
Using Folk Tales: Vowel Influences on the Letter G
Gentle, gigantic, gracefuldo these g words describe the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk? Students will explore the hard and soft g sounds by studying fairy tales and animals.
Text Talk: Julius, the Baby of the World
Students are asked to "talk" with Kevin Henkes' Julius, the Baby of the World by using open-ended questions to help them interpret the language, plot, and characters of the story.