Interaction and adventure draws high school and elementary school students together as they analyze stories about the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Exploring Cross-Age Tutoring Activities With Lewis and Clark
Using Children's Literature to Develop Classroom Community
Conversation and cooperation bring out the best in students when they hold dialogues about their individual strengths, abilities, and talents.
Exploring and Sharing Family Stories
Writing gets personal when students interview family members in order to write a personal narrative about that person.
Read a Song: Using Song Lyrics for Reading and Writing
This lesson will be music to the students' ears when they hear that they get to read song lyrics and compose original lyrics for a familiar song.
Developing Story Structure With Paper-Bag Skits
Lights, camera, action, and a bit of mystery! In this lesson, students use mystery props in a skit bag to create and perform in short, impromptu skits.
Getting to Know You: Developing Short Biographies to Build Community
How well do your students know their peers? Students transform into investigative reporters as they interview a classmate, compile the biographical data into graphic form, and introduce the student to the class.
A Journal for Corduroy: Responding to Literature
Connect home and school, literature and life, as students take a storybook character home with them and take turns writing stories about his visit.
Today is World Read Aloud Day.
Students celebrate the power of words by reading aloud to their classmates and spreading the word of global literacy to their friends and family.
The "1984" Macintosh commercial aired today during Super Bowl XVIII.
Original advertisements are created after students review advertising techniques they've studied.
Today is Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko's birthday.
Students revive elements of the oral tradition by writing about something funny that happened to them recently, sharing with classmates, and discussing the changes that occur during the retelling of the stories.
The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986.
Students interview a parent or another adult about the Challenger and hypothesize about differences. Students can also write about the Columbia disaster in 2003.
Get ready to go back to school!
Students share details about their lives with one another using the interactive Graphic Map and share their memories in small groups or with the whole class.
National Public Radio began broadcasting in 1971.
Students make predictions about the content of some of NPR's programs, then listen to the programs and report on the contents and discuss with the class.
Teacher Appreciation Week honors our teachers.
In celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week, students read a book about a teacher and follow up with an activity related to the book using the Venn Diagram, Letter Generator, Story Map, or Essay Map.
Annie Moore becomes the first immigrant to enter Ellis Island in 1892.
Students explore online resources about Ellis Island, interview an immigrant in the area, and publish their stories.
Author Eve Bunting was born in Ireland in 1928.
Students listen to a news article about the LA race riots and then read Smoky Night to discuss how a younger observer might be affected by these events and their perceptions.
The United States celebrates Thanksgiving Day today.
On this day, instead of teaching about a single day of Thanksgiving, use this as an opportunity to the concept of giving thanks.
Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, was born in 1914.
After learning about Dr. Salk, students interview a family member or someone they know who remembers the polio epidemic.
A Conversation with Laurie Halse Anderson
In this episode, Laurie Halse Anderson talks about her newest book, Wintergirls.
A Conversation with Matt de la Peña
Tune in to hear Matt discuss some of the thinking behind his newest novel, We Were Here.