V is for vocabulary. A content area unit provides the theme for a specialized ABC book, as students select, research, define, and illustrate a word for each alphabet letter.
Adapting the song "A-Hunting We Will Go," students put a "whale" in a "pail" and even "take a little "bear" and hug it if we "dare"."
Students increase their understanding of alphabet books by participating in a variety of reading and writing activities.
This online tool enables students to learn about and write acrostic poems. Elements of the writing process are also included.
Students create acrostic poems using their names and the names of things that are important to them.
Creating an illustrated alphabet book of action words, from "attack" to "zap", reinforces the definition of verbs as it stretches and expands students' vocabulary.
Students must "become" a character in a novel in order to describe themselves and other characters using powerful adjectives.
Using names and high-frequency words from nursery rhymes and the Big Book "The Enormous Watermelon", students engage in word recognition activities such as character identification and a word matching game.
This recurring lesson encourages students to comprehend their reading through inquiry and collaboration. They choose important quotations from the text and work in groups to formulate "quiz" questions that their peers will answer.
This selection is an informational narrative in the form of a play or Readers' Theater. The play is about a group of boys and girls who are summertime campers at the National Sea Base camp in the Florida Keys. Their adventure includes camping, snorkeling, and sailing aboard the ship. This is a new adventure for the characters in this story.
Students are guided through an informal exploration of nonfiction texts and child-oriented Websites, learning browsing and skimming techniques for the purpose of gathering interesting information.
Tradition and technology come together in this lesson in which students learn about Alaskan animals through Native American tales and their own online research.
This informational text describes how paleontologists continue to investigate unanswered questions about dinosaurs.
In this informational text, elementary school readers learn about the difference between weather and climate and about components of the climate system. The text can be used to practice visualizing and other comprehension strategies. Available in K-2 and 3-5 grade bands and as an illustrated book as well as a text document, the story appears in the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle.
Students explore their towns' landmarks, symbols, and people; look at brochures and other informational tools; practice writing for a specific audience and revising; and work collaboratively to create a brochure.
Students learn about alliteration, and then practice using alliteration in acrostic poems, tongue twisters, alphabet books, and number books.
Students compare attending a performance at The Globe Theater with attending a modern theater production or movie. They then create a commercial for an Elizabethan audience promoting a modern product.
Students write original stories using alphabetical order, beginning each page with a new letter, and then illustrate their texts in class or at home with their families.
The traditional autobiography writing project is given a twist as students write alphabiographies - recording an event, person, object, or feeling associated with each letter of the alphabet.
After reading Avis novel "Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?", students create an alter ego for themselves and use it to write their own radio show, modeled after the book.