This lesson introduces Family Message Journals—a teacher-tested tool for encouraging family involvement and supporting writing to reflect and to learn.

Through interactive writing, students work together and then independently to create invitation letters for a group of their peers and their families.

If the shoe fits… Actually, any shoe will fit this lesson, and the Artifact Analysis Questions provided will help students see it in a whole new way. Several rhyming texts take the shoe theme a step further, and introduce activities to increase students' awareness of rhyming words.

After listening to "Imagine," students reflect on the lyrics and answer questions. Then, they have a chance to write a stanza for their own song.