Language Arts Lessons

Do you have five minutes to spare? Discover several 5 minute activities that can be done in between lessons, before lunch or anytime you have an extra moment to spare.

Learn how to help your students classify and process information by using a graphic organizer. Discover what they are, how to use them and which format is the best to use.

A creative writing lesson plan that helps students solidify their understanding of comparative words (-er, -est) and can easily be adapted to various age ranges.

This lesson is similar to the classic game "Telephone" where players sit in a circle and whisper a sentence to each other to see how it changes and mutates through each individual's perception. However, this lesson is called the Visual "Telephone" Game because it is done on paper, rather than orally.

The "Unwritten Word" lesson plan asks students to creatively describe an emotion without ever using the emotion's label.

A complete list of Newbery Medal winners from 1922 to Present

A fun and colorful kindergarten writing lesson plan called Rainbow Writing.

This quick daily activity teaches your students a foreign word of the day as a fun language activity.

A list of kindergarten sight words. Also known as Dolch word lists and high frequency words.

Journal Prompts offer focus and structure to your Journal Writing Program. These Journal Prompts are perfect for your elementary school students to use during writing time.

Definition of the education glossary term Dolch Sight Words.

A complete list of 220 Dolch sight words for young readers.

All the best writing instruction tools in one easy place, to support your efforts to create competent young writers.

Journal Prompts offer focus and structure to your Journal Writing Program. These Journal Prompts are perfect for your elementary school students to use during writing time.

Just say NO to boring beginnings and student stories that put you to sleep. Here's how I get my students to start their stories off right and make the most of their creative writing opportunities.

This simple technique for teaching descriptive writing will help re-energizing your students' work, giving them the confidence to take their writing to the next level.

What does good student writing sound like? The simple use of common sound effects can really help student writing take off with a bang!

Students sometimes need instruction and practice in how best to answer questions in complete sentences. This set of questions give you an opportunity to train them.

Everyone loves tongue twisters, and no one more than children! You'll have their attention and enthusiasm right away when help them to see how alliteration can add power and punch to their writing.

Use the book Miss Nelson Is Missing to teach your students a Language Arts and Literature Lesson Plan.

Teach your students science using this lesson plan for the Eric Carle book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

It's not enough just to tell students, "Write down detail. Be creative and specific!" They're just learning how to write, so we need to show them what exactly to think about and write down. Here are some inspiring questions that get to the heart of descriptive, detailed writing.

How to use a picture, including works of art, to facilitate creative student thinking and writing.

How to use well-chosen journal topics, classical music, and checklists to make the most of your students' daily writing time.

Using a set structure for poems is an effective way to offer poetry "training wheels" to your young students. Budding poets will enjoy expressing their creativity through the structure you offer them.

For young poets, a set format really makes poetry more fun and accessible. It's kind of like poetry training wheels. This "Someday Poem" format gets you and your students off to a great start.

Bio Poems are a fun and easy way to ease your elementary students into poetry. This activity is especially great for the first few days of school.

A Journal Writing Checklist is a list of qualities that you hope to see in your students' creative writing. Use a Journal Writing Checklist to Assess Writing Progress.

A complete list of the Caldecott Medal Winners from 1939 to Present.

A well-run Pen Pal Program can be a fun and effective part of your Elementary Language Arts program. Not only can you teach writing through Pen Pals, but also reading, Social Studies, and Geography. Here's how to do it...

Use these topics to quickly assign a prompt to each student. Give them a short amount of time to write a speech before they present. Or, have them get up in front of the class right away and improvise. This makes a great Language Arts/Oral Language lesson plan.

Commentary on the concepts explored in the books Mosaic of Thought and Strategies at Work.

Biography Poems are a fun and novel way for your students to tell their life stories. Have them illustrate their poems, too, and you'll have an easy bulletin board for Back to School Night.

Let our expert guide show you the wonderful world of Children's Literature through her extensive site.

Teach your students about poetry through the classically succinct form of Haiku.

Broken down by age, this is a handy little list to know what classic books children have enjoyed for many years.

KWL Chart