Water is always moving in a continuous cycle from liquid to solid to gas and back again. Students study this never-ending cycle through shared readings, center activities, and experiments.
Rain, Ice, Steam: Using Reading to Support Inquiry About the Water Cycle
Teaching About Story Structure Using Fairy Tales
From "once upon a time" to "happily ever after," students learn to recognize story structure in fairy tales and create a logical sequence of events when writing original stories.
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.
From Fact to Fiction: Drawing and Writing Stories
Students gather factual information about frogs and toads to create nonfiction and fiction stories. Drawing is used for prewriting.
Two Thumbs Up! Get Students Writing and Publishing Book Reviews
Students evaluate book reviews written by other children, discussing their components and effectiveness, and write reviews of favorite books to record on video or post online.
Story Map
The Story Map interactive is designed to assist students in prewriting and postreading activities by focusing on the key elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution.
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.
Printing Press
The interactive Printing Press is designed to assist students in creating newspapers, brochures, and flyers.
The Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children is announced today.
Students read and discuss an award-winning book before writing their own story that demonstrates compassion.
Author E.B. White was born on this day in 1899.
Author E.B. White, most well-known for his famous children's book, Charlotte's Web, received high acclaim and awards for many of his works of fiction.
Celebrate the National Day on Writing®!
Students examine the different ways that they write and think about the role writing plays in life.
On this day in 1910, animal rights activist Joy Adamson was born.
A KWL chart is used to organize information about lions. Persuasive letters are written lobbying for programs and resources to protect these animals.
April is National Poetry Month!
Students are assigned to be "poets of the day" and are provided several models to create, illustrate, and present their different poems to the class.
Black Poetry Day is celebrated.
Books and webpages are gathered that focus on the work of African American poets and students explore the resources and find a poem to contribute to a poetry reading.
Learn About Staying Safe
Share a fun book about staying safe and then talk about real-life safety issues before writing a letter to someone in your community who can help.
Add Seasons to Rhyming Poems and Songs
Choose favorite rhyming songs or nursery rhymes then replace the rhyming words with seasonal themes.
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein was published in 1974.
Students are introduced to a Silverstein verse and asked for their impressions. They then draw that they imagine when they read one of his lines and then write a line or two to continue the passage.
The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846.
After exploring an exhibit online, students use the information they learned to write "A Day in the Life" narratives that tell about a person, animal, or object they saw in the exhibit.