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.

Give your students a chance to hone their reading comprehension skills by creating nonfiction text summaries in this introductory lesson.

Use this lesson to help your ELs learn key vocabulary terms that they will see in future lessons about the American Revolution. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson A Living Timeline: The American Revolution.

Your students will enjoy reading the classic story “The Ugly Duckling,” written about a very lovable duck! This reading lesson also includes a fun partner activity to help your students practice comprehension.

Every student is unique. This lesson emphasizes that uniqueness by having young learners use similes to share some of the traits that make them special. It features Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood and a fantastic storyboard exercise.

Get your students excited about geography with a lesson on Earth's oceans. After reading two different texts, they'll be ready to dive right into ocean paragraph writing.

In this lesson, students will use their creativity, a graphic organizer, and a fun story to learn about character analysis.

In this lesson, your students will explore the library in search of various genres of nonfiction texts. Teach this lesson at the beginning of the year to familiarize your students with the structure and organization of the library.

Reading can be a rollercoaster with its ups and downs! Use this lesson that features a rollercoaster-themed story map to teach your students about story structure and how to use a graphic organizer to visualize it.

Use this lesson to help your ELs understand main idea and supporting details. They'll analyze non-fiction word, sentence, and paragraph structures. It can be a stand-alone lesson or a support lesson to the In Search of Main Ideas lesson.

In this support lesson, your students will use sentence frames and short texts to make inferences about a character's feelings in order to understand their perspective.

Prepare your students to analyze and respond to literature by practicing five types of responses: predictions, questions, clarification, connections, and opinions.

Let’s put it all together! In this lesson, students will explore the different parts of a drama or play. By the end of the lesson they will be able to define terminology related to plays and give examples of the unique genre features!

Give students many opportunities to see how visuals can influence a story's meaning. Show off your acting skills and read a great book to help them learn!

Use this lesson to help your ELs understand main idea and supporting details in the context of sentences and paragraphs. It can be a stand-alone lesson or a support lesson to the Power Reading lesson.

Making flash cards is something done by students of all ages. Help your kids develop good study habits with this lesson plan, which will teach them how to use flash cards and a dictionary to learn new vocabulary.

In this support lesson, your students will compare and contrast character traits using a graphic organizer. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support for the lesson Comparing Two Characters.

Change is inevitable, even for story characters! In this lesson, your students will determine how a character changes throughout a story by focusing on the character’s dialogue and actions.

In this EL support lesson, your students will use introductory phrases to write about the main idea and details in a fictional story.

Use this lesson to help your ELs summarize information from a text and use context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. This lesson can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the Day 4 section of the Star Unit lesson.

Encourage your students to translate their understanding of theme to poetry. In this lesson, students will evaluate the theme of poems by sketching pictures and citing text evidence.

Help your students learn new vocabulary in this hands-on lesson. Your class will learn new words by adding a silent e on the end of familiar CVC words.

That’s right! The theme applies to everyone! Use this interactive lesson to teach your students how to find the theme of a fictional text.

Help students gain confidence in recognizing multiples of 10 as they critique a flawed response. Use as a stand-alone scaffolded EL support lesson or prior to teaching Big Spenders.

Context clues are a powerful tool for all readers! Use this lesson to teach your students how to utilize context clues to determine the meanings of unknown words.

Help ELs learn how to compare and contrast multiple nonfiction resources, using transition words to support their understanding. It can be a stand-alone lesson or support for the lesson Compare and Contrast Information Across Sources.

Help your students learn the standard measures of length and foster critical thinking with this engaging lesson. Use alongside The Smaller They Come or as a stand-alone activity.

Teach your students to ask and differentiate between recall questions and inferential questions. This lesson will help build a classroom culture around asking deep, inferential questions.