Using different writing/drawing materials (e.g., markers, color pencils, pastels, etc.), students learn how to communicate different moods and/or feelings to support their written ideas and how authors do the same through their work.
Color My World: Expanding Meaning Potential through Media
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.
Readers Theatre
Readers Theatre integrates oral reading, literature, and the performing arts. This strategy can entice the most reluctant and disinterested reader to become engaged in reading.
Descriptive Video: Using Media Technology to Enhance Writing
Students will have a roaring good time when they watch a scene from The Lion King as a way to compare standard and described programming media.
To, Too, or Two: Developing an Understanding of Homophones
The classroom becomes a stage in this interactive lesson in which students sing, act, and design comic strips to learn the meanings and spellings of common homophones.
Zines for Kids: Multigenre Texts About Media Icons
Special edition! Students use ReadWriteThink tools to create magazines about prominent figures using a variety of writing genres and styles.
Readers Theatre
Students develop scripts, perform, and use their voices to depict characters from texts, giving them the opportunity to develop fluency and further enhance comprehension of what they are reading.
Sharing Favorite Books Using Interactive Character Trading Cards
Using selected characters from a text of their choice, students put their literary analysis skills to work by creating fictional character trading cards.
CD/DVD Cover Creator
The CD/DVD Cover Creator allows users to type and illustrate CD and DVD covers and related booklets for liner notes and other information. Students can use the tool to create covers for books, music, and films that they explored as well as to create covers for media they compose individually or as a class.
Postcard Creator
The Postcard Creator helps students learn to identify all the typical parts of a postcard, and then generate their own postcard messages by typing information into letter templates. After printing their texts, students can illustrate the front of their postcards in a variety of ways, including drawing, collage, and stickers.
Book Cover Creator
The Book Cover Creator is designed to allow users to type and illustrate front book covers, front and back covers, and full dust jackets. Students can use the tool to create new covers for books that they read as well as to create covers for books they write individually or as a class.
Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in the US to earn a MD degree in 1849.
"Famous Firsts" are researched by students, followed by small group research and multimedia presentations to report research results.
Celebrate National Children's Book Week!
Children show support for their favorite Children's Choice Book award finalist by designing a promotional book cover.
Caldecott-winning illustrator Lane Smith was born in 1959.
Students discuss some of the ways in which illustrations can enhance a story and then become illustrators, using a variety of media.
The Spanish town of Guernica was bombed on this date in 1937.
After showing students Picasso's Guernica, they are provided with background information, share their impressions, and write about Picasso's purpose in creating the painting.
Music in Our Schools Month is in March.
Students explore the effects of music on a story by reading a story, novel, or play, viewing the musical version, and comparing the two. Students can then select a text read in class and create a musical adaptation.
Snowflake Bentley illustrator Mary Azarian was born in 1940.
Students catch snowflakes outdoors and sketch some of the structures, or grow their own snow crystals and examine them using magnifying glasses or microscopes.
Amazing Biographies: Writing About People Who Change the World
After reading about historical figures and other important people that have changed the world, children choose someone that they consider to be "amazing"—either someone they've heard about or someone they know—and create a book page that highlights this person.
Send a Smile: Make a Card for a Special Occasion
Everyone loves getting a greeting card, especially if it's homemade. Make a funny or thoughtful greeting card or invitation with pictures and a poem, joke, or riddle.
The Natural World as Inspiration: An Outdoor Art Show
Children incorporate materials from outdoors with paints or crayons to create pieces of art to display on their clotheslines, fences, or porches for a neighborhood art show.