"A great question is a springboard into a fascinating discussion. Phrase it the right way and students will start thinking. Then they'll start talking. Then you won't be able to get them to stop!

Great questions can make the difference between a good learning activity and a great one."

This includes 20 questions as well as many ideas to make your own questions including - student interests, audio, images, video, would you rather, summaries, lists, fantasies, mysteries.

Book Creator is a simple tool for creating awesome digital books. This site is a great way to bring creativity to your classroom or home. Students create, read and publish using a set of tools that is simple to use. Features include:
- 50 hand-picked fonts to choose from
- Add images or take your own photos
- Drop in video or music, or even record your voice
- Use the pen tool to draw or annotate
- Use shapes, arrows and emojis to express your ideas
- Portrait, square, or landscape book layouts

Students combine text, images, audio and video to create:
Interactive stories
Digital portfolios
Research journals
Poetry books
Science reports
Instruction manuals
‘About me’ books
Comic adventures

"CommonLit delivers high-quality, free instructional materials to support literacy development for students in grades 3-12. Our resources are:
Flexible;
Research-Based;
Aligned to the Common Core State Standards;
Created by teachers, for teachers.
They believe in the transformative power of a great text, and a great question. That’s why we are committed to keeping CommonLit completely free, forever." (CommonLit site)

"CommonLit delivers high-quality, free instructional materials to support literacy development for students in grades 3-12. Our resources are:
Flexible;
Research-Based;
Created by teachers, for teachers.
They believe in the transformative power of a great text, and a great question. That’s why we are committed to keeping CommonLit completely free, forever." (CommonLit site)

Teachers can search for content by grade, theme, content type, genres, literary devices, and more. Alternative options are offered for students that may require adaptations for reading an easier level.

Parent guides are also provided.

Benchmark and ongoing assessments are available.

360 Curriculum provides full integrated units E.g., Unit 1 Characters Who Change and Grow which includes a baseline assessment, vocabulary activities, reading lessons, writing lessons, quiz, grammar activities, media exploration, discussion, and a culminating task.

As this is a living free resource, you are required to enter your email so that you can receive updates as they happen.
When reviewing curricula for Tier I instruction, it is essential to ensure they do not include instructional practices that are not aligned with the scientific evidence base of how children learn to read.
The Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines are designed to highlight any non-aligned practices, or “red flags,” that may be present in the areas of:
- Word Recognition
- Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Writing
- Assessment

These 4 point rubric exemplars were developed to provide a consistent and common resource that aligns with the Saskatchewan curriculum and provide opportunities for transfer of responsibility between educator and student. These rubrics are designed to be edited by educator and student.

This site offers games, activities and resources in the following categories:
GAMES
MATH
LANG. ARTS
HISTORY
USA
GEOGRAPHY
SCIENCE
PEOPLE
HOLIDAYS

This comprehensive website contains a great deal of information and there are many curricular connections to grades 3 – 6 Science, Social Studies, and English Language Arts.

Be sure to check out the "Past", "Evolution", "Present" and "Future" tabs along the top to access LOTS of great ag resources and information!

Among other things, the site offers:
- Simple Lessons - Depending on the sections your students study and activities undertaken, different outcomes may be met. There are several ‘grab and go’ activities for students, available in both pdf and word documents.
- Brain Buster Activities - These crossword puzzles, word searches, word scrambles, matching pages, and colouring pages are great when time is limited because they can be easily stopped and started! They will challenge students to problem-solve and test their knowledge.
- Quizzes - The quizzes here are generally the same quizzes as the students will find on the web pages. They are available for each section on this website so that students progress can be tracked if you wish!

"Kids can use this as a resource for a variety of subjects. With biographies, an atlas, and other reference materials, Factmonster is an informative place for kids to find fun facts and play educational games." (Common Sense Media)

Resources are organized across the top toolbar by subject, homework, games and tools.

Teacher Read Aloud or Class novel study

WHAT IS IT?
The premise is simple; we pick a book to read aloud to our students during a set 6-week period and during that time we try to make as many global connections as possible. Each teacher decides how much time they would like to dedicate and how involved they would like to be. Some people choose to connect with just one class, while others go for as many as possible. The scope and depth of the project is up to you. While there are commonly used such as Skype, Twitter, Padlet, or Flipgrid, you choose the tools that will make the most sense for you. Teachers get a community of other educators to do a global project with, hopefully inspiring them to continue these connections through the year.

WHEN IS IT?
Once a year, starting in early October and running through mid-November. Due to the time commitment, this is only a once a year project, however, two fantastic spin-off projects run at other times; the New Zealand Read Aloud and the French version of GRA, Ecouter Lire le Monde.

A complete novel study for the novel, Hatchet. This novel study includes chapter comprehension questions, video links, formative and summative assessments, choice board, rubrics, etc.

Final projects can help students summarize and review content from the entire semester. Plus, they can create fantastic products with what they've learned!

Projects let students take what they’ve learned, put it all together and show off a little of their own creativity and personality.

Options include:
1. Create a website
2. Create a screencast video
3. Make a single multimedia webpage
4. Connect with a cause
5. Create an infographic
6. Create a series of podcasts
7. Do a genius hour-style project
8. Create an annotated collection
9. Tell it as a story
10. Make an explainer video

This is a cross-curricular unit using the poem "If You're Not from the Prairie".
It includes Grade 4 outcomes for ELA, Arts Ed and Social Studies.
Created by Danielle Jamieson

Pobble365 helps to keep students writing. Every day, Pobble365 provides a weird, wonderful, and/or thought provoking image to spark ideas for discussions and writing. It is free and along with a different idea-inspiring image every day, Pobble365 provides a story starter, discussion questions, as well as sentence challenges and “sick sentences” to build language skills. If students don’t have online access, images and writing supports can be printed and photocopied.

The activities include a prompt, sentences stems, vocabulary bank, questions, and challenges to help you scaffold your lesson.

You will need to sign up and make an account to access the resources, but it is free to do so and each day includes a free prompt. You can also create your own!

Get your students writing every single day!

This writing continuum was created by Kenaston School (Nicole Duley and Cindy Menzies). It has taken the writing outcomes for Grades K-8 and organized them in a scope and sequence. This can be used to track individual student progress through the outcomes and follow the student through the grades to support in the implementation of the PeBL philosophy and the creation of personalized goals.

Calldecott winning author Laura Vaccaro has compiled a free set of literacy resources to go along with her books which educators are free to print and share. These resources would support literacy in both reading and comprehending, as well as creating and responding to text. Most of the books are available to read online, or could be read aloud as part of a video shared with families. The resources to accompany the books are printable, so may be supportive of those families with less access or familiarity with technology

Newsela provides high-interest, printable news articles from a wide range of subject areas. Teachers can adjust the reading level of news articles to meet the needs of students. Within each article, power words are identified. Students can click on these and see the definition in student-friendly language. Newsela also provides writing prompts and questions about the articles. You can sign up for free access to the end of the 2019-20 school year. Although the site is American, there are lots of applicable news stories that align with Saskatchewan curricula and context.