Ahoy there! Ready to sail with your students on a treasure map summary? What's that matey? Your students need practice with summaries? Then take a journey and summarize to find the hidden treasure.

The hardest part of writing an essay can be the first few steps. This lesson and accompanying graphic organizers will help students map out their ideas and practice crafting paragraphs. With this support, your writers will be off and running!

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.

Once students have selected a topic related to a piece of literature they have read and mapped out their argument, this lesson will help them turn their prewriting into an essay.

Nourish your child's inner writer with this lesson on three different forms of literature: poetry, prose, and drama. After going through some examples of each, students will demonstrate their knowledge by filling out bubble maps.

Through creative and engaging activities, your students will explore and learn about landforms. In this lesson, they will make their own mini dictionary of landforms.

Whoa, weather! Using technology as an aid, students will put their research skills to the test while learning about hurricanes.

Get your magnifying glasses—it’s time to play text detective. In this lesson, students will learn the importance of reading comprehension and making inferences while learning to correctly label the 5 Ws within a text.

In this lesson, your students will use guiding questions as a way to organize their thoughts about non-fiction reading. They will also gain an understanding of some of the factors that led to the colonization of the Middle Atlantic States.

Making inferences from texts about the Plains States, your students will learn how to read with a purpose! In this lesson, your students will practice important skills while developing knowledge of various states.

Natural landmarks are a source of wonder and fascination, and they encourage people’s imaginations. Students will get a chance to use their imaginations in this lesson where social studies and writing combine.

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.

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.

Look at history! In this lesson, guide students through an exploration of the context, causes, and effects of the Transcontinental Railroad, and help them practice identifying the main idea and supporting details in a nonfiction text.

In this lesson, your students will practice writing about places important to them through poetry. By the time they are done, students will have become better writers and taken a walk down memory lane!

This fun combination of scavenger hunt and bingo is sure to please young learners. Not only will your students increase their knowledge of text features, they'll also enjoy a selection of engaging games.

This lesson teaches your students to pay attention to small words, such as adjectives, adverbs, and verbs, to make a big difference in reading comprehension! Use as a stand-alone lesson or as a pre-lesson for Close Reading: Introduction.

Teach your students the importance of text features with informational readings about endangered species around the world. This lesson on wildlife doubles as a great way for young learners to hone their reading comprehension skills.

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.

This lesson will help your young writers develop a claim, or thesis, and construct an argument around it. You may have students complete the essay by continuing the process with the lesson Literary Argument Writing: Drafting Your Essay.

In this lesson, students will practice identifying the subject and predicate of a sentence and making predictions with textual evidence as they read short fictional texts. Use it as a stand alone lesson or as a precursor to What's Next?

This lesson combines historical facts and creative writing to engage students in exercises that enhance both vocabulary and social studies knowledge.

Earth Day is a worldwide celebration that promotes awareness and appreciation for the environment. Use this lesson to teach your students about Earth Day with an engaging poetry activity.

This lesson gives your students practice researching an inventor to write an informative essay. Students will use a graphic organizer to take notes on the research they conduct in the library or on the internet.

Understanding the big idea of a nonfiction text and being able to write a succinct summary are key fourth grade skills. This lesson focuses on summarizing a nonfiction passage in 3-4 sentences.

Help your class grasp the concept of "main idea" with this fun, hands-on lesson. Students will dive into mystery bags full of supportive detail clues to determine the main idea of each bag.

Let's practice reading nonfiction texts! In this lesson, teach your ELs about identifying and describing text features. This lesson can be taught on its own or used as support for the lesson Formatting Text Features.

Understanding the big idea of a nonfiction text and being able to write a succinct summary are key fourth grade skills. This lesson focuses on summarizing a nonfiction passage in three to four sentences.

In this lesson plan, students will discuss characteristics of a hero and how to get information from texts to understand why a person is considered a hero. Partner discussions will help students have a deeper understanding.

This winter-themed lesson plan, which incorporates the book Tree of Cranes by Allen Say, teaches students about Japanese traditions and customs. They will review the basic elements of a narrative story, and then write their own narratives about a special event or moment in their life.