Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.
Breaking News English is a free current events based lesson builder. New lesson every three days. All lessons are based on stories currently in the news - as the world's news breaks, teach it.
This site is very valuable for EAL students as it allows the speed of the audio of the article to be adjusted to the pace best suited to the language level of the student. It also offers a wide range of language activities to support EAL students.
Though teachers usually caution students against using sentence fragments, Edgar Schuster's work demonstrates that professional writers often use fragments effectively. This lesson helps students understand that there are reasons that they can and should use sentence fragments to become effective writers.
This is an activity for students who have learned about theoretical probability and independent events.
"It can be tough to tell what’s true and what’s “fake news” just by looking at a headline. But it’s easy to do a quick check and get the real facts when something doesn’t look right online."
"Brer Rabbit Down the Well" from Usborne's Illustrated Stories from Around the World is read aloud.
The Listening Guide for "Brer Rabbit Down the Well" is attached.
This lesson provides teachers with support for using text-dependent questions to help students derive big ideas and key understandings while developing vocabulary using the fictional text The Bridge Dancers. In this book, two sisters, Maisie and Callie, are faced with a challenging situation. Callie gets hurt while their mother is away and Maisie must decide if she can rely on her knowledge of herbal medicine to save her sister's life.
This resource encourages students to deepen their understanding of global poverty—to see our connections to the rest of the world, to explore the roots of inequities and to understand the importance of assistance that preserves human dignity, values diversity and unleashes the inherent power of community.
Experience has shown that successful development is possible—if initiatives invest in people and ensure that beneficiaries over time become the owners of the development process. This means addressing the intertwined causes of poverty and helping communities mobilize their resources so that they can help themselves. ultimately, it means providing a hand up instead of a handout. The stories contained in this resource draw on the long-term experience of Canada and Canadians in the developing world, and encourage students to see themselves as part of the bridge of hope that unites us as global citizens.
Tips for using this resource:
The lessons in this resource have been created as a unit that builds foundational understanding and encourages exploration of key concepts and critical global issues to allow for deeper learning and meaningful attitudinal change. While we recommend that the lessons be used together, each set of lesson activities can also stand alone to provide learning opportunities around a particular aspect of international development. The term “lesson” does not imply that it can be completed within one class. Class periods vary with timetables, and experience in co-operative learning, language levels and group dynamics can all affect the time needed to complete these activities. The teacher is the best judge of these factors.
Curriculum Connections:
The themes and concepts presented provide excellent links to Ministry of Education curricular objectives/
expectations in Social Science, history and Geography programs across the country. activities also maximize a
variety of specific skill-based objectives/expectations and competencies such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, social skills and map analysis. Each lesson outlines general objectives/expectations to assist teachers in program planning. The activities can easily be adjusted for grade and level by providing varying degrees of support, allowing additional time and adjusting expected outcomes.
During interactive read-aloud sessions, students identify how an author conveys mathematical information about animals' sizes and abilities. They then conduct research projects focusing on the same mathematical concepts.
As a culminating activity for "Slaughterhouse-Five", students make a compilation album (a CD with 6-8 tracks) that reflects their analysis, understanding, and reaction to the ideas in the novel "Slaughterhouse-Five".
Helping Parents Grow Lifelong Readers with resources for 0 to 13+ years of age.
Imagine if vocabulary could come alive with the click of a button! Students create video posters to demonstrate knowledge of new economics vocabulary.
Students create brochures on the same topic as another piece of writing they have done, highlighting how shifting purposes and audiences creates changes in their strategies as writers.
The Building Literacy with Technology in Elementary guide provides articles, samples, and lessons to find new ideas and approaches to engage learners in building skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
In the Building Literacy with Technology in Elementary guide you will explore:
- Ways to get students making in language arts,
- Take a creative approach to student work with informational text,
- How to motivate students by creating their own comics, cartoons, and graphic novels.
The guide includes lesson plans where students:
- Design a new cover for a book they are reading to demonstrate comprehension and explore character, plot, setting, symbolism, and conflict.
- Create a digital scrapbook that showcases the viewpoint of the main character of a novel.
- Illustrate and translate the meaning of an idiom to help others learn these examples of figurative language.
- Write and produce an animated tall tale about a famous person.
- Explore character, plot, and theme and learn to write persuasively as they develop a movie-style trailer for a book they have read.
- Learn and practice persuasive writing and presentation skills.
- Personify an object and write a story as part of an online book or animated adventure.
- Analyze verse and explore meaning by creating a visual poem.
These articles, lessons, and strategies engage students through creative technology to maximize student literacy skills.
The Building Literacy with Technology in Primary guide provides articles, samples, and lessons to find new ideas and approaches to engage your students in building skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
In the Building Literacy with Technology in Primary guide you will explore:
- Engaging new readers and writers with creative technologies
- Using digital storytelling in the primary classroom
- Inspiring every student to be an author
The guide includes lesson plans where students:
- Explore initial sounds through the creation of a classroom ABC book.
- Learn to write using alliteration and create illustrations that support and reflect their writing.
- Practice writing and illustrating as they create a page in your class’s adaptation of their favorite pattern story.
- Write a letter to their parents, or classroom teacher, to persuade them to get a new pet, supporting their opinion with reasons and examples.
- Research an animal and create a riddle to showcase their knowledge and engage other students in the natural world.
- Create a book review on a card or 3D cube to help others choose books they will enjoy.
- Learn about the haiku poetry form and write and illustrate their own haiku poems.
- Write how-to stories about getting ready for school and publish them to share with their families and to use at home.
These articles, lessons, and strategies engage students through creative technology to maximize student literacy skills.
"Thunkable enables anyone to build their own beautiful mobile apps. Using drag and drop code, students can start from scratch or remix a sample app. Created app projects are accessible on both iOS and Android platforms. Thunkable has an active community with regular design challenges to keep students thinking outside the box with their app creations." (AASL)
"With the free version of Thunkable, all app projects are set to public mode. This means that all projects are automatically included in the Thunkable Public Gallery, for anyone to preview and remix. With a PRO membership, you have the ability to create and edit private projects. This means that no one else will have access to your apps." There are paid versions available as well.
What do your students think about each other? Find out as you teach them the concepts of acrostic poems and challenge them to write an uplifting acrostic about a classmate.
A combination of focused activities and creative, open-ended technology projects can help you take a new approach to building literacy with your secondary students. Use these articles, samples, and lessons to find new ideas and approaches that will work for your learners.
The Building Literacy in Secondary guide includes:
- Articles
- Reading, Literacy, and Digital Creativity
- SPLAT...POW...WOW! Motivating Readers and Writers
- More Than Just a Writing Prompt
- Supporting 6+1 Trait Writing
Lesson Plans
- Create a Video Poem
- Design a Book Cover
- Character Scrapbook
- Not Your Average Portfolio
- MyBook (Fakebook) Page
- Digital Book Trailers
These articles, lessons, and strategies engage students through creative technology to maximize student literacy skills.
Students improve phonemic awareness through games and chants that help them isolate beginning and ending sounds and connect them with their written symbols (graphemes)