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.

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

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.

Using various reading strategies and resources, students explore the issue of food waste. They also create persuasive arguments and blog posts examining this topic.

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.

Students become "thieves" in this lesson as they use a previewing strategy to "steal" information from textbooks and other nonfiction texts before actually reading them.

Striking images can leave lasting impressions on viewers. In this lesson, students make text–self–world connections to a nature- or science-related topic as they collaboratively design a multimedia presentation.

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

A KWL chart is used to organize information about lions. Persuasive letters are written lobbying for programs and resources to protect these animals.

Students do a Bradbury author study and then create flyers to advertise their favorite story using the ReadWriteThink Printing Press.

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.

After learning about Hawkins' dinosaur replicas, students work individually or in small groups to investigate a dinosaur of their choice, comparing their findings to Hawkins'.

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.

After exploring the ways that monarch butterflies react to seasons, students complete an inquiry study to examine how other things change because of the seasons and create a class anthology.