This book focuses on quick and easy language arts activities to inspire and motivate students in kindergarten to sixth grades. Ingenious ideas appeal to children's enthusiasm for games, parades, race cars, their own names, and much more. The activities cost little or nothing. They engage young learners, and they work! This book is perfect for a…

Despite the importance of first grade as a crucial period in a young student's academic development, little is known nationally about how much time first-graders actually spend in class on various subjects or about the kinds of activities and skills that they work on in class. This Issue Brief details how often per week and how much time per day…

Teachers can take advantage of the appeal and power of Caldecott Award literature to extend and promote learning across the curriculum. This book demonstrates how to use award-winning books as springboards to language arts learning in the library and classroom, and the expansion of student awareness and appreciation of illustration techniques. For…

Noting that Washington Irving's classic tale of the Headless Horseman has lately become a Halloween favorite, this lesson plan helps students explore the artistry that helped make Irving the United States' first literary master, and ponders the mystery of what happened to Ichabod Crane. Its 4 lessons seek to make students able to: (1) summarize…

This book uses art to stimulate content-area language development and writing skills. From A to Z, the 81 animal patterns in the book combine with 35 different activities to enhance the primary curriculum--each student gets a photocopy of the pattern, paper, scissors, and some materials to decorate the "critter." The book's activities…

Brief essays discuss (1) a teacher's discovery of the difficulty of the writing process, (2) various methods of writing instruction that are still only a part of the whole, (3) the difference between children's writing at home and at school, (4) a method for teaching poetry, and (5) a fifth-grade book writing project for first-grade students. (HTH)

Describes the steps taken by a fourth grade teacher and her students which resulted in the publication of a guidebook to metropolitan Denver. (DD)

Describes beginning a unit on Shakespeare and his play "Henry V" by showing and discussing in class an episode from the television program "Star Trek: The Next Generation" called "The Defector," which opens with a scene from Henry V and makes allusions to the play throughout the episode. (SR)

Offers annotations of 12 items from the ERIC database regarding research or classroom practices concerning the relationship between reading and writing in the primary grades. (SR)

Describes class activities for the primary grades based on Margaret W. Brown's book "The Important Book" which connects reading and writing. (SR)

Describes how the author uses a poem by Marge Piercy called "Barbie Doll" to help students discover for themselves the implicit power of gender. Describes how students (1) examine the poem's language and have lively and insightful discussions as they find meanings for themselves; and (2) extend and elaborate on these meanings as they…

Argues that humor is an invaluable teaching tool in English classes. Describes how the author and her students: found humor an important means of discovering profound truths in Shakespeare's dramas; enjoyed the epic "Paradise Lost"; worked with satire in Chaucer; and used humor in students' own creative activities. (SR)

Argues that regular homophone practice enhances vocabulary knowledge, spelling skills, pronunciation ability, and overall reading proficiency. Describes how card games played with decks of homophones helped to accomplish these things. Notes particular benefits of homophone games to English-as-a-second-language students, and outlines key advantages…

Describes how some student teachers and cooperating teachers guided pupils in learning phonics through a study of rhyming poetry. Discusses class activities involved in teaching couplets, triplets, imagery in poetry, quatrains, alliteration, limericks, and onomatopoeia, and the rhyme and phonics elements involved. (SR)