The Venn diagram in kindergarten? Yes! Venn diagrams can be used effectively by young students. This lesson offers user-friendly, hands-on, and developmentally appropriate ideas for using Venn diagrams as a tool even kindergarten students can use with ease. Using hula hoops and real objects, as well as online interactives, students are introduced to the Venn diagram. They sort, compare and contrast, and organize information in the content areas of art, math, social studies, science, and literature. These activities can be used to transition students to comparing and contrasting information in texts. (author/ncl)

This lesson involves students in two prewriting activities, one on brainstorming ideas using story maps, and one on creating beginnings of stories. Using a collaborative writing approach, students work together to craft a story. Before starting the activities, the teacher reads aloud the first few sentences from a variety of children's books which have unusual, exciting, or particularly descriptive openings. Each student works individually to read what has been written previously, adds the "next sentence," and passes the developing story on to another student. The story is passed from student to student until the story is complete. Later, the story is revised by the small groups of students. A detail procedural plan and links to instructional materials are available at the website. (author/ncl)

In this lesson, students engage in a whole-group revising process, using a story which has been written collaboratively. Teachers lead this lesson by modeling how to reread and revise stories for content. Students participate by adding sentences and marking the text to show where revisions were made. This lesson reinforces the importance of teacher modeling in supporting writing development. Although this lesson uses a story that has been written cooperatively, teachers may use samples from produced as part of ongoing classroom instruction. (author/ncl)

In this lesson, students write a simple cinquain of their own as a follow-up to a subject they have been exploring in class. Cinquain is a five-line poetic form, using a wavelike syllable count of two-four-six-eight-two. Building upon their knowledge of specialized vocabulary, students create poems to reflect their understanding of the topic. This lesson may be easily integrated into a variety of thematic units or research projects. (author/ncl)

This resource introduces students to the structure of writing workshop in an effort to bring greater focus to their writing. The lesson takes place in a writing workshop format. It begins with a whole-class topic that the students break down with the use of a timeline. From the timeline students select a single event to write about. After students learn the strategy, they can apply it to self-selected topics. Peer editing is conducted and followed up with student-teacher conferences to revise and address weaknesses. (author/aec)

This lesson introduces Family Message Journals-a teacher-tested tool for encouraging family involvement and supporting writing to reflect and to learn. The teacher introduces journals by demonstrating the process of writing a letter. Children are then supported through the composition process until they can write messages independently. Family members are encouraged to read a student's message and write a reply. To provide a context and purpose, the messages should focus on experiences and activities in which children have participated at school. Resources to help teachers start family message journals are available at the website. (Author/ncl)

Focusing on the integration of authentic writing opportunities into daily instruction, this lesson encourages teachers to promote and model the use of informal writing to inspire students to write short notes to themselves, friends, teachers, and family members. Students write short notes, to remind, plan, request or compliment, providing many natural opportunities for meaningful writing and practice in encoding/decoding written text. Note writing is particularly appealing to beginning readers and writers because the form is short, its purpose easily understood, and results are frequently concrete and immediate. This lesson describes an approach that can be adapted to a variety of instructional settings. (author/ncl)

One of the most difficult aspects of writing is keeping audience in mind throughout the writing process. This lesson supports primary level students in learning about audience. Through interactive writing, students work together to create an invitation letter for a group of their peers. In addition to the interactive writing experience, students work independently to create invitation letters for their families. Extension activities include conducting additional interactive writing experiences, reading books with samples of letters, and creating invitations at a learning center. (author/ncl)

In this lesson, students write free-verse acrostic poems about themselves using the letters of their names to begin each line. They then write an additional poem about something that is important to them, also using the letters of that word for the beginning of each line. Students revise and edit both poems, then recopy and illustrate them. The activity uses creative writing as a way for students to apply their knowledge of spelling and phonemic awareness. (author/ncl)

This lesson introduces primary level students to the basics of letter writing. Integrated with a study of blue whales, this lesson uses the nonfiction picture book, Big Blue Whale by Nicola Davies to present factual information about blue whales and the fiction picture book Dear Mr. Blueberry by Simon James to demonstrate how a letter can be used to ask questions and foster inquiry about blue whales. Comparing information found in the texts reinforces students' understanding of fiction and nonfiction, using graphic organizers, and formulating questions. Reference materials, including links to websites about whales, and assessment ideas are also available. (author/ncl)

Learning to write nonfiction text is an important literacy skill for primary level students. This lesson guides students in writing descriptions about their 100th day bottles. Following demonstration lessons, students work at home to identify one hundred objects to collect and describe. They practice descriptive writing by writing clues about their bottles for a guessing game. As a culminating activity, students create a class book that is added to the classroom library. This lesson offers ideas for integrating mathematics and writing, makes connections to families, and engages students in learning. Sample letters, downloadable activity sheets, and additional resources for 100th day celebrations are available at the website. (author/ncl)

This set of six lessons integrates language arts, science, technology, and the visual arts as students explore life in the deepest parts of the ocean. Students learn about the sea as they listen to fiction and nonfiction texts, explore picture books, hear poetry, do research, learn vocabulary, write stories and poems, produce artwork, and present what they have learned. The lessons require that you navigate through links that contain EDSITEment-reviewed sites. These websites offer rich information and are helpful to both teachers and students. Resource lists are available for picture books, poetry collections, online nursery rhymes, research books, and additional related websites. (author/jlkrause)

This lesson uses Laura Joffe Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to combine key reading skills with prediction and sequencing practice. Students learn about cause-effect relationships during a shared reading of the book and then complete a cloze exercise that uses context and initial consonant clues. Students then create story circles that display the events of the story and use these circles as a guide to retell the story to a peer. Finally the students compose their own stories, featuring themselves in the role of the mouse. (author/ncl)

The focus of this lesson is literary response. Students listen to several stories featuring the character Corduroy and respond orally and in writing. This lesson provides a model of reflection for students as they listen to stories, begin to read stories, and develop their own written stories. While other stories would work well in this model, the story of Corduroy allows for a personal connection by having students interact with a stuffed bear and write about their own adventures with Corduroy. (author/ncl)

This lesson offers ideas for introducing three types of report writing that can be accomplished by kindergarten students. These reports allow young students to see themselves as writers with important information to share. The reports include a documentation of a science exploration, picture journaling, and riddle writing combined with art productions. Students participate in research, record their discoveries, and share their reports with peers. This lesson give examples based on topics and themes commonly found in primary level curriculum. (author/ncl)

Inspired by the picture book, It Starts with an A by Stephanie Calmenson, this lesson invites young learners to combine their experiences with familiar objects and descriptive writing. This lesson effectively integrates oral and written language and provides opportunities for teachers to model descriptive language. Following a read aloud and class discussion, students make a class book patterned after It Starts with an A. The "published" book is then added to the class library and shared during independent reading. (Author/ncl)

This lesson introduces primary level students to the basics of letter writing. Integrated with a study of blue whales, this lesson uses the nonfiction picture book, Big Blue Whale by Nicola Davies to present factual information about blue whales and the fiction picture book Dear Mr. Blueberry by Simon James to demonstrate how a letter can be used to ask questions and foster inquiry about blue whales. Comparing information found in the texts reinforces students' understanding of fiction and nonfiction, using graphic organizers, and formulating questions. Reference materials, including links to websites about whales, and assessment ideas are also available. (author/ncl)

This series of lessons features is structured around a text set made up of conceptually-related fiction and nonfiction for reading aloud and for independent reading. Beginning with a comparative study of selected, illustrated retellings of the traditional folktale “Little Red Riding Hood,” this literature unit continues with a study of modern revisions of this well-known tale. After students have an opportunity to explore similarities and differences among the retellings and revisions, they are introduced to fiction and nonfiction texts featuring wolves in order to provide them with a different perspective of the “villain” in the Little Red Riding Hood tales. The unit culminates in a class-written version of the folktale. This unit may be used as a stand-alone study of Little Red Riding Hood tales or integrated into a larger unity of fairy tales. (author/ncl)

This lesson helps students recast the text they are reading in a different genre, which in turn, makes them more insightful readers and helps develop creativity in thinking and writing.
The lesson begins with a read aloud of favorite stories. To add to students’ growing ways of looking at and listening to words, students “mine” the texts for favorite words. Working together, students select words and phrases to create a collective class poem. As a culminating activity, each student writes and performs a poem individually. This lesson provides an engaging way for students to respond to a variety of texts. (author/ncl)

In this instructional approach, students choose their own reading material, respond to reading in a journal, and discuss their books daily in small groups. Teachers model the process by guiding students through structured prompts and by rotating participation with the small groups. This lesson is a structured guideline for helping students to think about the books they read and to ask questions about books shared by other students. Sharing books orally and responding to books in writing helps students recall main plot points and details in the stories they read. (Author/ncl)