Playlist: ELA
Hero or Not A Hero?
Students will determine what makes a hero a hero.
St. Patrick’s Day Worksheets
St. Patrick Day’s themed word searches, crossword puzzle, reverse crossword, transition writing practice, and a math puzzle.
Characters’ Faults Can Also Be Strengths
Strength and weakness are often two sides of the same coin. Students will explore how a character’s flaw can be a benefit.
Words Within Words: February
How many words can you find within February?
Words Within Words: Chocolate
How many words can you find within Chocolate?
Holiday Shuffle – Day vs Date
Wouldn’t some holidays be better on a certain day of the week? Should Thanksgiving have a set date?
Halloween Problems and Solutions
When we try to solve a problem, sometimes we end up creating new problems. Which lead to new solutions. Which lead to new problems.
St. Patrick and Other Legends
How would real people feel about the legends that have been created about them?
Getting Specific With St. Patrick’s Day Writing
Let’s take a starting phrase about St. Patrick’s Day and get specific. No, even more specific!
Comparing Characters’ Bedrooms
What item’s in a character’s bedroom would reflect their deepest desires? And what if they toured a similar character’s room?
Holiday Emoji Story 🎅
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Words Within Words: CORNMAZE
How many words can you find within CORNMAZE?
Words Within Words: COBWEB
How many words can you find within COBWEB?
Halloween Emoji Story 🎃
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Halloween Emoji Story 🕷️
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Greekymon Studies – Round 1
What might a creature named “Ursolunascope” be like?
Mother’s Day Cards
Let’s write the cleverest Mother’s Day cards you’ve ever seen!
Multiple Meaning Matcher – Alpha
Can your students match multiple meanings of the same five words?
Compare and Create New Year’s Traditions
Hey! Our New Year traditions have a lot in common.
Words Within Words: ORNAMENT
How many words can you find within ORNAMENT?
Words Within Words: WREATH
How many words can you find within WREATH?
Bobbing for Apples
What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?
Words Within Words: CRANBERRY
How many words can you find within “cranberry”?
Words Within Words: STUFFING
How many words are hiding inside STUFFING? More than you think.
A Halloween Costume Gone Wrong
Let’s go roller skating in a Halloween costume! What could possibly go wrong?
Super Specific Similes: Quick Baby
Let’s make this simile about a quick baby even more specific.
Super Specific Similes: Loud Class
Let’s make this simile about a loud class super specific!
Super Specific Similes: Stinky Seaweed
Start with a basic simile. Now make it more specific. Now even more. Watch how much better writing gets with each round.
Looking Closely at Holiday Photos
Let’s write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!
Holiday Writing: Packing Crates
An old photograph. A holiday scene. Pick one object in the picture and write from its point of view.
Thanksgiving Photo Writing
Starting with an old-timey photo, students will write from a particular item’s point of view.
Introducing Universal Theme of Change
Everything changes. But how does it change? Students brainstorm dozens of examples and boil them down to one big idea.
Introducing Universal Theme of Power
So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Power? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.
Greek and Latin Word Part Paths
How can we go from Biology to Immobile?
Antonym Paths
Does the antonym of an antonym bring us back to the same meaning?
Fancier Figurative Language: Use the Opposite
Let’s start with “As cold as fire.”
Analyze Characters Using Philosophy
What is the Brick Pig’s philosophy? How would he apply it to the characters in Harry Potter?
A Lunar Survival Mission
A favorite of mine! This task is delightfully complex and ambiguous, forcing students to make choices without enough information and with no right answer. How will they survive on the moon for three days?
Word Ladders Introduction
You won’t believe how this spelling and vocabulary puzzle will get kids’ brains sweating over the smallest of words.
Writing A Thanksgiving Letter
What if an inanimate object could express thanks for a special person in your life? What would it write?
Holiday vs Holiday (from a Mascot’s Perspective)
Want something to do during the holiday season that is both fun and involves thinking? Get students writing about what a snowman would think about Halloween or what a ghost would think about Thanksgiving.
Characters Dressed as Other Characters for Halloween
What if one character dressed up as another for Halloween? Would the Cat in the Hat pick Captain Jack Sparrow, because they’re both chaotic yet good-natured people? Would Elsa dress up as The Ice King since they are both lonely?
SCAMPER: Scaffolding Creativity
Asking students to “think creatively” won’t get you far. They won’t know how to start, they’ll get stuck with simple ideas, or they’ll just go completely wild. SCAMPER is a tool for scaffolding the process of creativity.
Paragraphs: Systems of Sentences
Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.
Not Like The Others: Charlotte’s Web
Four Charlotte’s Web characters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Not Like The Others: US Presidents
Four US presidents. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
The Tournament of Biomes
Want to move beyond memorizing the characteristics of biomes? In this lesson, students work through a Tournament of Biomes, explaining which biome wins in each round (based on criteria you choose). In the end, they crown a 👑 Champion Biome!
Do Narrators Have Too Much Power?
Imagine being a character in a story. Are you worried that your story’s narrator may inaccurately describe you? What if they reveal something you wanted to be kept secret? Do narrators have too much power!?
Investigating Christmas Trees
Start with facts about Christmas trees. Group them. Label them. Can you boil it all down to one big idea?
Student Introductions With Depth and Frames
Want to introduce the tools of Depth and Complexity and learn more about your students and introduce the Frame graphic organizer? Have I got the activity for you!
Synonym Graphs
So, which is happiest: happy, joyful, or ecstatic? Which is most temporary?
Jabberwocky and Context Clues
Context clues lessons can be a disaster. Here, we expose students to a delightful classic packed with nonsense words (“Jabberwocky”) and ask them to decipher the meanings and parts of speech. Then, it’s only natural for students to write their own nonsense poems.
Studying and Remixing “The Raven”
Ready to push kids beyond the boring, old ABAB rhyme scheme and into something a bit more complex?
Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea
Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.
Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity
Your students will use Depth and Complexity to note how a character’s main trait changes across a story.
“Its Big Day” – A Children’s Story About Its and It’s
Let’s spice up a typically dull lesson about the difference between “its” and “it’s” by asking students to write a children’s story about the adventures of a critter named It.
Introduce Symbolism with Pixel Art
Create a pixelated icon that represents the essence of a character!
Characters’ Talents and Multiple Intelligences
How do characters from novels line up with Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences?
Literary Technique: Juxtaposition
Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!
Motivation and Moral Development
Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?
Creating A Classroom Motto
Starting with specific examples of fantastic classroom behavior, your class will end up with one sentence summing up their expectations. It’s a classroom motto!
Greek and Latin Dinosaur Names
Let’s create a new dinosaur using Greek and Latin stems!