Students explore their towns' landmarks, symbols, and people; look at brochures and other informational tools; practice writing for a specific audience and revising; and work collaboratively to create a brochure.
All About Our Town: Using Brochures to Teach Informational Writing
All About Alliteration: Responding to Literature Through a Poetry Link
Studied students stupefy! Students learn about alliteration by listening to an alliterative read-aloud and apply the knowledge they gain to the creation of their own poem and illustration.
Seeing Integration From Different Viewpoints
What does the world look like through someone else's eyes? Guide students in using colorful paper glasses to examine a story of school desegregation from multiple perspectives.
The Connection Between Poetry and Music
Students won't miss a beat in this reading fluency lesson that combines music and poetry.
Building Classroom Community Through the Exploration of Acrostic Poetry
What do your students think about each other? Find out as you teach them the concepts of acrostic poems and challenge them to write an uplifting acrostic about a classmate.
Exploring and Sharing Family Stories
Writing gets personal when students interview family members in order to write a personal narrative about that person.
Let It Grow: An Inquiry-Based Organic Gardening Research Project
Students learn about organic gardening by developing their own research questions, conducting research, gardening at their school, creating signs about their plants, and presenting their research to the class.
Collaborating, Writing, Linking: Using Wikis to Tell Stories Online
Students become online authors in this lesson in which they write and post a short story using wiki technology.
And the Question Is... Writing Good Survey Questions
There's no question that students will be able to compose good survey questions by the end of this lesson.
Skimming and Scanning: Using Riddles to Practice Fact Finding Online
Students will learn to skim and scan to make sure they don't flounder when they're surfing the Internet for facts to help them complete riddles about the United States.
Give Them a Hand: Promoting Positive Interaction in Literature Circles
Students circle their desks as they analyze their own participation within a small group discussion.
Combining Read-Alouds With Economics in the Primary Grades
Students learn that what you read in books can really add up when they analyze literary texts for economic concepts.
Poetry Circles: Generative Writing Loops Help Students Craft Verse
Students put their heads together in a poetry circle to learn and practice different forms of poetry.
Story Elements Alive!
What's in a narrative? Students find out in this lesson in which they explore four narrative elements—setting, characters, problem/solution, and plot, through purpose-driven read-alouds and independent reading.
BioBags: Linking Literature and Life
Students create BioBags, a collection of texts that mark special times in their lives. BioBags provide a way for students to share a variety of events and texts.
Using Pictures to Build Schema for Social Studies Content
How do you read an image? Students find out in this lesson in which they "read" several images of the Boston Massacre to better understand the event and recognize effects of propaganda.
A World of Readers: Libraries Around the World
Bookworms will enjoy the bytes they find in this lesson as they research and share information about online library services in places around the world.
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.
Developing Searching, Skimming, and Scanning Skills With Internet Bingo
Student pairs aim to be the first team to call out "bingo" in this lesson in which they use skimming and scanning to locate information about ancient Greece and Rome.
Let's Read It Again: Comprehension Strategies for English-Language Learners
Help Spanish-speaking English-language learners unlock the mysteries of their new language by using a bilingual book to recognize unfamiliar words and construct meaning from the text.