Before students can respond to literature critically, they must have a strong grasp of big ideas and summary writing. Support your ELs in these foundational reading skills by introducing a three-sentence paragraph frame for summary writing.

A lesson about the Great Depression doesn't have to depress your students! They will enjoy building background knowledge for Bud, Not Buddy with great interactive and cooperative learning tasks.

Use this lesson with your students to practice comparing and contrasting the key details in two texts on the same topic. It can be a stand-alone lesson or a pre-lesson for the What's Similar? What's Different? lesson.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a 17th century writer and philosopher who today is considered one of the first documented feminists and advocates for women’s education. In this lesson, students will read two nonfiction texts about Sor Juana and discuss her life and accomplishments before writing an opinion piece about her.

Which number doesn't belong? This lesson requires students to think critically as they determine which number is not a factor of a particular number. Teach it on its own or as support for the lesson Factors Over the Rainbow.

Encourage students to explain their processes when converting from a mixed number to an improper fraction, and back again. Use this lesson on its own or as support to the lesson Single Strategy for Adding and Subtracting Mixed Numbers.

Help your students see the variety of strategies they can use to compare fractions! Students will compare their strategies with that of their classmates. Use this lesson on its own or use it as support for the lesson Fraction Wars.

Practice finding unknown numbers in addition equations using fun and silly word problems.

Spirituals have a long history in the United States, and often serve to strengthen and motivate people. Students will compare three types of spirituals from different time periods and share their understanding with their peers.

Get your students comfortable with discussing multiple strategies to solve subtraction problems with this lesson on two- and three-digit subtraction. It may be taught independently or as support for the lesson Subtraction with Regrouping.

Get your students comfortable discussing their math thinking in converting centimeters to meters. This lesson may be used on its own or as support to the lesson Converting Metric Measurements to Decimals & Fractions.

Fractions are everywhere! In this hands-on lesson, your class will work together in groups to find real-world examples of fractions. As they discover more complicated fractions, students will create their own word problems with them.

It's not enough to just memorize the multiplication table! It helps students to know how to explain their strategy to find the product too. Teach this lesson on its own or use it as support for the lesson Slap and Roll Timed Multiplication.