This cross-curricular lesson combines Social Studies and Language Arts to demonstrate how the study of an historical topic can be developed to make learning nonfiction more exciting, and also improve fluency and comprehension. This project about Benjamin Franklin includes a series of lessons in which the students: 1) read for information from multiple texts, 2) write a script for a Readers Theater play, 3) read for expression and fluency by using their script, 4) enhance their reading with visual arts, and 5) demonstrate dramatic interpretation through role-play. This approach engages students throughout in active participation and collaboration. Included are many supporting resources, such as a read-aloud rubric, an audition sheet, and ideas for student assessment and reflection.

In this lesson students work together to plant a garden and study its growth using the inquiry process of questioning and exploring. As they research and study, students record their observations in a field journal, to be shared with others.

In this lesson, students will read Laura Joffe Numeroff's 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' to combine word-skill work with prediction and sequencing practice. Students learn about cause-effect relationships during a shared reading of the book and then complete a cloze exercise that uses context and initial consonant clues. Students then create story circles that display the events of the story and use these circles to retell the story to a peer. Finally, the students compose their own stories featuring themselves in the role of the mouse.

In this unit, students will begin their inquiry by comparing fiction and nonfiction books about animals, using a Venn diagram. They will list things they want to know about animals on a chart. As a class, students will vote on an animal to research. They will revise their question list, and then research the animal using prompts from an online graphic organizer. After several sessions of research, students will revisit their original questions and evaluate the information they have gathered. Finally, students will revise and edit their work and prepare to present their findings to an authentic audience.

Students listen to A Pocket for Corduroy and three other Corduroy stories and discuss the characters and plots. A letter to parents introduces a follow-up writing activity, in which a stuffed classroom "Corduroy" goes home with a different student each night. With parents' help, students write and illustrate a two- to three-sentence adventure story about Corduroy's stay with them, and share their stories with the class.

In this lesson, students choose their own reading material, respond to reading in a journal, and talk about their books daily in small groups. The teacher guides the work through structured prompts and by rotating participation with the groups. Students read at their individual levels, while heterogeneous grouping provides peer support. This lesson is a structured guideline for helping students learn to think about the books they read, and to ask questions about books shared by other students.

In this lesson, students count the days between Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Valentine’s Day and are challenged to complete 100 acts of kindness during that time. They brainstorm examples of kind acts they could do and discuss how to report acts of kindness they witness. They also select a service project to plan and complete together as a class. For the project’s duration, acts of kindness are tracked on a classroom chart. Students are encouraged to acknowledge kind acts by others through thank you notes, and families are encouraged to help report acts of kindness. The project culminates with a Valentine’s Day celebration.

Popplet is a web based and app based tool that allows students to mind map their ideas with user-friendly functions. Students can create brainstorming webs easily and collaboratively.

In this lesson students identify with Dr. King through reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities that provide a glimpse into Dr. King's life. Students record what they know about Dr. King on a KWL chart. They then read aloud the picture book My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers and add information to the KWL. Throughout the week, they explore websites and other sources of information about Dr. King, record new information on the KWL chart, and keep a journal of their own thoughts and ideas. As a culminating activity, they plan a birthday party for Dr. King to celebrate is birthday.

This activity has students learning all about Frogs!  Students will watch a brief video about frogs and complete a tree map that includes headings for "Where They Live," "What They Look Like," and "What They Eat."  These can be changed to meet the needs of your students.  Next, students will label the different parts of a frog's body.  Students also have a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast frogs with toads.  There is an interactive Frog Life Cycle, where students will use images to place different aspects of the frog's life cycle in order.  Early finishers can enjoy a final activity - learning how to draw a frog.

Students will improve visualization skills through role play, texture identification, and creating an original work of art depicting their own families. They will also discuss connections between the painting and their own lives.

In this unit, students will develop an understanding of nonfiction through peer interaction and hands-on experiences with books. They use graphic organizers to record their thinking and new learning.

In this lesson, students make the connection that the words sung in a song are part of a book that can be read. They explore this connection through children's song storybooks and interactive websites. Students complete a project by writing new lyrics to a familiar song and creating illustrations related to the lyrics. During the lesson students engage in various levels of reading and writing activities.

Use Epic to guide students to learn what a biography is, and have them find information about a specific person.

Students will generate questions regarding a given topic and then research that topic using a kid-friendly search engine. Students will utilize information obtained during their search, in order to create a shared presentation.

This resource contains extensions, assessments/reflections, and five different session ideas to teach students how to: use prior knowledge to categorize words as parts of speech; use reading skills to create sentences with word cards; discover the required elements of a complete sentence by manipulating everyday words; share and learn new vocabulary; use descriptive words and phrases to complete complex sentences; and demonstrate reading comprehension through illustrations.

In this lesson, students will study greeting cards to build motivation to read and write, practice reading fluency, and attend to print concepts. This experience allows students to study the crafting techniques authors use when they create greeting cards. After exploring various greeting cards, students have the opportunity to create greeting cards and share them with other students.

This inquiry leads students through an investigation of symbols and representation. By investigating the compelling question "What symbol best represents the United States?" students explore what each American symbol represents, how we use these symbols, and what we, as US citizens, value. Students work through a series of supporting questions, performance tasks, and sources in order to construct an argument using evidence from a variety of sources.

In this lesson, students are first introduced to a variety of books using rebus writing. They then brainstorm lists of rhyming words that they could use in their own rebus poems. Finally, students create their own rebus poems and share them with an audience.

In this lesson, students use a timeline to break a larger topic into several events or moments; then, each student selects an event to write about from the timeline. Students first work with a whole-class topic, then apply this strategy to self-selected topics. Students share their writing and respond constructively to one another's efforts. Finally, teacher–student conferences help students incorporate feedback and work on specific weaknesses.