Words can uplift others, but they can also cause harm. In this lesson, students will hear the story Desmond and the Very Mean Word, and they'll discuss the power of positive and negative words in friendships, school, and community.

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.

Use this lesson to explicitly teach unknown vocabulary words to students using structured language practice strategies. This can be used a stand alone activity or a support lesson.

What’s the difference between rhymes and rimes? Your students will become masters at using and explaining onset, rhyme, and rime after this lesson.

This lesson includes a bunch of activities to help students learn about compound words. Your second-graders will love guessing and illustrating compound words in this colorful lesson plan!

When reading, we all encounter unknown words at times. But how do we figure them out? In this lesson, students learn how to become a “human dictionary” by using a variety of strategies to figure out the meaning of unknown words.

This lesson will help students explore using a dictionary to figure out tricky words with suffixes. Use as a stand-alone activity or a support for the Understanding Academic Vocabulary in a Nonfiction Text lesson.

Pick up the phoneme and practice! In this lesson, your students will practice their sense of sound-symbol relationship to develop solid spelling and reading skills.

Help your kids learn about prefixes with these hands-on activities. Young learners will have fun acting out different words and practicing their writing skills.

Why walk when you can mosey? In this lesson, students will learn how to use synonyms to express shades of meaning in their writing. Introduce the topic with a book, then brainstorm descriptive options for overused words.

Use a silly movie clip and fun activity to teach your second graders how to spell and recognize words with the inflectional ending -ing.

Introduce your kids to the concept of a prefix. This lesson contains a bunch of activities designed to nourish your students' affix identification abilities.

Students will learn a new spelling rule with a super silly name: the FLOSS rule! Explore double-letter one-syllable words using this fun lesson plan.

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.

Students will work together as well as individually to add up coins to a desired amount. This real life skill will be made fun when students get to physically count out their cents!

Suffixes can do some amazing things. They can turn "power" into "powerful," "big" into "bigger," and "fear" into "fearless." This hands-on lesson allows young writers to build their own words using different root words and suffixes.

This lesson will provide students with an opportunity to become more comfortable with identifying and defining academic vocabulary words in a nonfiction text about a chicken's life cycle to support comprehension.

Does that pesky letter G say /g/ or /j/? How about the sneaky letter C, does it say /k/ or /s/? Use this lesson to teach your students how to tell the difference between the hard and soft sounds of consonants.

Wondering how to teach your second graders about inflectional endings? Look no further. After playing with dice and learning through song, your students will be adding -ing and -ed like pros.

What happens when you make the plural form of nouns that end with “y?” It depends. Help students learn the two rules for these plural nouns in this engaging 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.

A fun twist to charades. Students act out and guess different words while identifying the long and short vowel sounds inside each of them.

Ever wonder how to get your students to understand r-controlled vowels? Meet Bird, Star, and the Bossy R! These characters will help your students understand how to read and identify that pesky Bossy R through a story and sorting activity.

Figurative language is so tricky, especially for English Learners! Use this lesson to introduce the concept with a focus on similes and metaphors.

Help your ELs practice identifying how their peers are feeling to develop emotions vocabulary and support comprehension. It can be used as a stand-alone lesson or a support lesson.

Use this lesson to help your ELs understand inference, evidence, and schema. They'll analyze sentences to make inferences using evidence. It can be a stand-alone lesson or a support lesson to the Inferring With Pictures lesson plan.

What’s makes r-controlled syllables special? Use this lesson to help your students practice identifying, reading, and spelling words that contain r-controlled syllables.

Test your students ability to find words as they practice reading and spelling words with ending consonant blends in a timed game!

Students will be able to use and identify nonfiction text features. It can be a stand-alone lesson or a support lesson to the How Many Features? lesson plan.