How can you see what your students are thinking while they read? Try reading response letters in your class. Students will practice formatting letters and learn to discuss their thinking about literature in writing.

Give your ELs concrete experience with adverbs and adverbial phrases as a tool to discover details in nonfiction texts. Use this as a stand-alone lesson or as support to the Hey! What's the Big Idea? lesson.

Help your ELs learn how to identify the main idea and supporting details in a nonfiction text by using nouns and pronouns as guide words. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson Explorer Letters.

Teach your students to recognize the words that signal cause and effect relationships. This lesson can stand alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the Nonfiction Comprehension: Cause and Effect lesson.

Help ease your students into the school year with this lesson that helps them share their feelings about the first day of school.

In this “leafy” lesson, your students will participate in a class project that shows the actions of the three branches of government. Using a close read, students will learn about the very specific actions of these branches.

Writing a research paper is a huge undertaking. Getting curious about your topic and breaking it down into steps makes it more inviting and doable. Use this lesson to review the research process.

Respect, honesty, compassion, and following the rules and laws are all ways to be a good citizen. Use this civics lesson with your students to explore the ways in which children can be good citizens now and in the future.

Give students a chance to experience a different point of view! This fANTastic lesson on narrative style turns young readers into characters of Chris Van Allsburg's Two Bad Ants.

Teach your students to explain details in a text by using declarative sentences. This lesson can stand alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the Color Coding Nonfiction Text 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.

What’s on their minds? In this lesson, students will have the opportunity to creatively express their opinions in the context of a "letter to the editor." Students will make connections between real social issues and writing!

This lesson helps students learn about asking and answering questions about a text. It also exposes them to valuable lessons about trying to figure out their dreams and not giving up along the way.

Use this lesson to teach your students to describe the similarities between stories with words that signal comparison. This lesson can stand-alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the The Same or Different? You Decide! lesson.

This lesson combines students' knowledge of US geography and their creative writing skills in one fun activity!

Analyzing and discussing arithmetic patterns builds a strong number sense in your students! Use this as a stand alone lesson or as a pre-lesson for Boom, Clap! Patterns in the Multiplication Table.

In this lesson, students work with adverbs every which way! They will be identifying different kinds of adverbs, sorting them, and making banks of adverbs to assist them in their own writing.

Do your students struggle with similes and metaphors? Do they have trouble identifying the two different types of analogies? This lesson will help simplify the two and put an end to the confusion.

This lesson provides students with instruction in strategies based on number sense. Use this lesson alongside Show Me the Money: Understanding Value or as a stand-alone lesson.

Help your students become super readers! In this lesson, your students will create storyboards to identify the beginning, middle, and end in fictional texts.

Let's talk about the distributive property! Give students a chance to explain their thinking of how and why this property of multiplication works. This lesson may be taught as a standalone or as support to the lesson Distributive Property.

Are the stories the same or different? You decide! Use this lesson with your students to practice comparing the story elements in two fictional stories written by the same author.

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.

Help your students explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text by giving them high-interest nonfiction texts to read.

In this inference lesson plan, your students will use evidence and background knowledge to make inferences in a variety of media including artwork, fictional stories, and even a short film.

Charts, graphs, and diagrams are complex text features for students to decipher. Use this lesson to familiarize students with these features. It can be taught on its own or before the lesson Charts and Graphs and Diagrams, Oh My!

Informative essays have a structure that is fairly easy to dissect. This lesson includes an anchor essay which students will mark up, a mixed-up essay outline for them to sort, and a web for them to organize ideas for their own essay.

Help your second graders hone their comparing and contrasting skills with this reading lesson using The Rough Face Girl by Rafe Martin. This version on the Cinderella story is a Common Core recommended text.

Get your students discussing the attributes of polygons by having them categorize statements as always, sometimes, or never true. Use this lesson independently or alongside Characteristics of Polygons.

July 4, 1776, was an important day in U.S. history because an important document was signed. Use this civics lesson to help young historians learn about the purpose of the Declaration of Independence.