Students practice writing detailed, sensory-rich descriptions by framing a small piece of nature and freewriting about it. From this minilesson, students can develop a variety of types of writing.

Students adopt a skeptical stance and become weather detectives who ask "Why?" and "Why not?" as they investigate the history and validity of some common weather sayings.

After researching various natural disasters, students share their findings with each other using glogs, or through poster presentations.

Featuring descriptions and activities for fifty exceptional titles, Mary Jo Fresch and Peggy Harkins offer a wealth of ideas for harnessing the power of picture books to improve reading and writing in the content areas.

Students can utilize this printout to organize their writing as they learn to use the RAFT strategy. This printout enables students to clearly define their role, audience, format, and topic for writing.

Students can utilize this printout to organize their thoughts as a new concept or content is introduced through a Seed Discussion. This printout readies students to acquire new knowledge by organizing what they know and what they're prepared to learn.

In this strategy guide, you'll learn how to elicit ideas and conversation about new concepts or content by effectively holding a Seed Discussion in your classroom.

This strategy guide introduces Carousel Brainstorming, also known as Rotating Review, and offers suggestions to implement this technique in your classroom for brainstorming about new topics or reviewing learned information.

A Concept Sort is a vocabulary and comprehension strategy used with students to introduce new topics and/or familiarize students with new vocabulary.

Using Animoto, a free Web 2.0 tool, students can develop short digital videos that include music, photos, video clips, and text as well as share their creations electronically.

Students hone their critical thinking skills by learning how to make inferences from textual clues.

Students get to write a whale of a tale when they complete a graphic organizer sequencing the journey of a mountain fish to a polluted waterway.

Through Sewell's novel, students explore the cruelty to animals and extend the discussion to current events, eventually presenting the information.

Our solar year is 365.24219 days. Since our calendar does not deal in partial days, every four years, we add an additional day to February.

Students learn about Rachel Carson, explore different environmental websites, and write a Diamante Poem about a particular habitat.

After examining the characters in one of DiCamillo's stories, students write original short stories featuring animals as central characters.

Students select and explore a scientific topic in detail using Simon's nonfiction science books and then use what they learn to write original poetry on the topic.

Students make mental "snapshots" of a natural setting, then capture the details of their setting by writing and then creating a class booklet of the nature walk.

Students brainstorm a list of objects and processes that have changed over time and use the Timeline tool to sketch out the evolution of the item they have chosen. A giant class timeline can be created to show the evolution of the items students have investigated.