Writing is a hugely important life skill. Before your kids begin expressing their ideas, however, they'll need to work on penmanship. This simple lesson helps students with the basics of writing the letters of the alphabet.

In this lesson, students will practice defining words by making their own vocabulary cards. This lesson plan can be used alone or with the Mini Dictionaries lesson plan.

Students will learn long vowel tricks to expose impostor vowels who “say” their name in this fun game that teaches the long vowel rule.

Who doesn’t love learning about animals? Engage students in research as they write informational books about animals.

Ask an important question this month: What does an activist do? This engaging lesson can be used leading up to Martin Luther King Jr. Day (and year-round). It supports students in understanding what it means to be an activist and how Martin Luther King Jr. used collaborative action to change the world and speak out against oppression. Perfect for first graders and second graders, this activity explores word meaning and other reading and writing skills.

It's time to make—and hide—animals! In this lesson, students read a story about camouflage and then create their own animals to hide. Finally, students write an informational paragraph to describe their animals' hiding powers.

Direct instruction about text features will help ELs better comprehend nonfiction texts. In this lesson, students will practice identifying text features. This lesson can be used alone or with the What's in a Text Feature? lesson plan.

Use this lesson to introduce, review, and teach pronouns! Your students will get to practice using these words and build their reading and language skills.

Your young scientists will have tons of fun visiting measurement stations and using tools to measure various objects. They'll even be able to create posters at the end of the activity.

This engaging lesson teaches students about the famous author Faith Ringgold. Students will explore two pieces of literature, comparing and contrasting story elements, then write opinion pieces to illustrate which book they liked best.

In this lesson, students will learn how to add a one-digit number to a two-digit number. This will help students build upon the skills needed for regrouping larger numbers.

In this lesson, students will practice "reading" pictures. They will look at the details in pictures in order to make predictions about what happens in a text. This lesson can be used alone or with the Predicting Pictures lesson plan.

This lesson incorporates everyday reading material into a fun creative writing activity. Students will learn new vocabulary and incorporate it into an original story.

It’s time to make sentences! At the Sentence Cafe, words come together to build stories. Get ready to learn about different parts of speech such as conjunctions, possessive pronouns, articles, and more in this hands-on lesson.

Strong narratives have clear sequences of events. Through this lesson, students plan out what will happen in their story before they start writing their own engaging narratives.

I like to run, play, and dance! In this lesson, students will learn how to express themselves and write simple sentences. Your class will gain important social skills by interacting with their peers during these activities.

Short vowels can be found just about anywhere. One great place to look is inside your own classroom. In this lesson, students will enjoy going through the class list to sort the names of their peers based on short vowel sounds.

In this lesson, students will identify new vocabulary words from a text read aloud. After selecting new words, they will create their own picture dictionaries to learn the meaning of each new word.

Your students will love to see rhyming trees! They will manipulate letters to form different words that have the same rhyme. This lesson also integrates science and could be used to discuss parts of a plant or a tree.

Your students will deepen their understanding and build their vocabulary through reading nonfiction texts and identifying unknown words.

This lesson allows students to nourish their inner writers and artists by creating catchy sentences and decorating alphabet letters.

Share the pen in this lesson on text features as you work together as a class to create a nonfiction big book. This lesson can be used alone or with the Studying Authors: Nonfiction Writing lesson plan.

Smaller dictionaries that are totally relevant to the material being read? In this lesson, students will learn that these miraculously really do exist and go by the name of glossaries!

Mae Jemison was the first African American female astronaut to enter space. Use the Get to Know Mae Jemison lesson plan to learn more about this famous scientist. Children will then read and write about her, and create their own paper rocket.

In this lesson, your students will explore reading with technology with "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Students will use a graphic organizer to reflect on this story.

This lesson will help your students write proper telling sentences. It features exercises for describing objects, writing descriptions, and fixing sentences.

Get your students moving with this activity that helps them practice their addition skills while having fun hunting for their next problem.

Students love comic books! Channel their excitement for this fun genre and get their creative writing juices flowing. By writing their own comic strips, students will be practicing composing, sequencing, and using dialogue.

A fun spin on a classic game! This sight word game will help your students with their reading fluency and reinforce foundational reading skills. Students should be fairly fluent in reading Pre-Primer Dolch sight words prior to the lesson.

Food and grocery shopping will take on a different perspective for students by the end of this activity. Students may even find themselves keeping a closer eye on their pennies!