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Language Arts Lesson

Collection of easy and effective Language Arts lesson plans to meet reading, writing, listening, and spelling standards in your classroom.

Writing Instruction Headquarters
All the best writing instruction tools in one easy place, to support your efforts to create competent young writers.

Journal Prompts for Young Creative Writers
Journal Prompts offer focus and structure to your Journal Writing Program. These Journal Prompts are perfect for your elementary school students to use during writing time.

Three Strong Story Starters for Students
Just say NO to boring beginnings and student stories that put you to sleep. Here's how I get my students to start their stories off right and make the most of their creative writing opportunities.

Descriptive Writing Workshop
This simple technique for teaching descriptive writing will help re-energizing your students' work, giving them the confidence to take their writing to the next level.

Using Sound Effects In Student Stories
What does good student writing sound like? The simple use of common sound effects can really help student writing take off with a bang!

Teaching Students To Answer Questions In Complete Sentences
Students sometimes need instruction and practice in how best to answer questions in complete sentences. This set of questions give you an opportunity to train them.

Tongue Twisters and Alliteration Lesson Plan
Everyone loves tongue twisters, and no one more than children! You'll have their attention and enthusiasm right away when help them to see how alliteration can add power and punch to their writing.

Miss Nelson Is Missing Lesson Plan
Use the book Miss Nelson Is Missing to teach your students a Language Arts and Literature Lesson Plan.

Eric Carle Lesson Plan for The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Teach your students science using this lesson plan for the Eric Carle book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

Teaching Descriptive, Detailed Writing Through Asking Questions
It's not enough just to tell students, "Write down detail. Be creative and specific!" They're just learning how to write, so we need to show them what exactly to think about and write down. Here are some inspiring questions that get to the heart of descriptive, detailed writing.

Describing A Picture Lesson Plan
How to use a picture, including works of art, to facilitate creative student thinking and writing.

How to Design a Journal Writing Program
How to use well-chosen journal topics, classical music, and checklists to make the most of your students' daily writing time.

"I Remember" Poems - A Quick And Easy Poetry Structure
Using a set structure for poems is an effective way to offer poetry "training wheels" to your young students. Budding poets will enjoy expressing their creativity through the structure you offer them.

Someday Poems - A Quick And Easy Poetry Format
For young poets, a set format really makes poetry more fun and accessible. It's kind of like poetry training wheels. This "Someday Poem" format gets you and your students off to a great start.

Bio Poems Lesson Plan
Bio Poems are a fun and easy way to ease your elementary students into poetry. This activity is especially great for the first few days of school.

Journal Writing Checklist for Assessing Student Writing
A Journal Writing Checklist is a list of qualities that you hope to see in your students' creative writing. Use a Journal Writing Checklist to Assess Writing Progress.

Caldecott Medal Winners 1938 to Present
A complete list of the Caldecott Medal Winners from 1939 to Present.

Pen Pals in the Classroom
A well-run Pen Pal Program can be a fun and effective part of your Elementary Language Arts program. Not only can you teach writing through Pen Pals, but also reading, Social Studies, and Geography. Here's how to do it...

Impromptu Speech Topics - Oral Presentation Ideas for Speeches
Use these topics to quickly assign a prompt to each student. Give them a short amount of time to write a speech before they present. Or, have them get up in front of the class right away and improvise. This makes a great Language Arts/Oral Language lesson plan.

Teaching Reading Comprehension with Reader's Workshop
Commentary on the concepts explored in the books Mosaic of Thought and Strategies at Work.

Sample Biography Poem
Biography Poems are a fun and novel way for your students to tell their life stories. Have them illustrate their poems, too, and you'll have an easy bulletin board for Back to School Night.

Children's Books at About
Let our expert guide show you the wonderful world of Children's Literature through her extensive site.

Haiku Lesson Plan
Teach your students about poetry through the classically succinct form of Haiku.

100 Best Books for Children
Broken down by age, this is a handy little list to know what classic books children have enjoyed for many years.

Source: http://k6educators.about.com/od/languageart1/Language_Arts_Lesson_Plans_Reading_Writing_Language_Arts_Lessons.htm

Field Trip Tips

During my first year of teaching, I naively thought that field trips would be easier and more fun than a typical day in the classroom.

Then, I got my first taste of field trip reality - my student Andrew got stung on the tongue by a wasp first thing in the morning. Next on the agenda was a lost group of children with a rogue chaperone. Needless to say, field trips went from fun to frantic in no time, from my perspective.

After that stressful first foray, I quickly adjusted my expectations and come up with a new, more practical way to approach field trips and minimize the chances of drama and mayhem.

Follow these field trip tips and you'll likely create fun learning adventures for your students:

• Explicitly discuss field trip behavior rules with your students beforehand. - Teach, model, and review appropriate field trip behavior with your students for at least a week before the big event. Drill into their heads that field trips are not the time or place to mess around and that any aberrant behavior will result in non-participation in any future field trips that school year. Sound serious and back it up with consequences as needed. It's good to have your students scared of testing the boundaries on field trips. Emphasize that they are representing our school's reputation when they are off-campus and that we want to present our best behavior to the outside world. Make it a point of pride and reward them afterward for a job well done.
• Give your students a learning task ahead of time. - Your students should show up for the field trip with a base of knowledge on the subject at hand, as well as questions to answer before returning to the classroom. Spend some time in the weeks before the field trip discussing the subject matter. Review a list of questions they will be looking to answer during the field trip. This will keep them informed, engaged, and focused on learning all day long.
• Choose parent chaperones wisely. - Field trips require as many adult eyes and ears as you can get, but unfortunately you can't be everywhere at once. From the first day of school, observe the parents of your students closely, looking for signs of responsibility, firmness, and maturity. A lax or careless parent can be your worst nightmare on a field trip (see example mentioned above), so choose your parental allies wisely. That way, you'll reap the benefits of having adults partners in the field trip process.
• Make sure you have all necessary medications. - Talk to the school nurse and procure any and all medications that your students usually take during the day. While on the field trip, make sure you administer the medications accordingly. If you have students will allergies, you may need to get trained on how to use an Epipen. If so, the student involved will need to stay with you at all times.
• Arrive at school early on field trip day. - The students will be excited and antsy, ready to go. You'll want to greet the chaperones and give them instructions for the day. It takes some time to organize the sack lunches and ensure that everyone has what they need for the day. And one last pep talk on appropriate behavior never hurt anybody.
• Give your chaperones the tools they need to succeed. - Make nametags for all chaperones and students. Create a "cheat sheet" of the day's itinerary, special rules, your cell phone number, and the names of all kids in each chaperone's group; distribute these sheets to each adult on the field trip. Procure and label grocery bags that each chaperone can use to carry the group's sack lunches. Consider getting a little thank-you gift for each chaperone, or treat them to to lunch that day.
• Be proactive in regards to challenging students. - If you have a student who causes trouble regularly in the classroom, it's safe to assume he or she will cause at least five times more trouble in public. If possible, ask his or her parent to be a chaperone. That will usually limit any potential problems. Also, when you are making groups, split any problem pairs into separate groups. This is a good policy for troublemakers, chatty girls, or bickering frenemies. And it's probably best to keep the most challenging students in your own group, rather than pawning them off on an unsuspecting parent chaperone.
• Count all day. - As the teacher, you will likely spend most of your day counting heads and making sure everyone is accounted for. Obviously, the worst thing that can occur on a field trip is losing a student. So count accurately and often. Enlist the help of chaperones in this task, but do it yourself too, for your own peace of mind. Keeping track of each and every student is the number one priority of field trip day.
• Do a "debriefing" when you return to the classroom - If I have a few extra minutes after the field trip and before dismissal from school, I'll often put on some soothing classical music and have the students draw about what they saw and learned that day. It gives them a chance to decompress and review what they experienced. The next day, it's a good idea to do a more active and in-depth review of the field trip material, extending the learning further and connecting it to what you're working on in the classroom.
• Write thank-you notes after the field trip. - Lead a class language arts lesson the day after your field trip, formally thanking the people who hosted your group. This serves as an etiquette lesson for your students, and helps form your school's good reputation at the field trip destination. In future years, this goodwill could translate into prime perks for your school.

With proper planning and a positive attitude, field trips can be unique ways to explore the outside world with your students. Stay flexible and always have a Plan B, and you should do just fine.

Source: http://k6educators.about.com/od/classroomorganization/a/fieldtrips.htm

Top 8 Components of a Well-Written Lesson Plan

Whether you're working on your teaching credential or being reviewed by an administrator or evaluator, you will often need to write out a lesson plan during your teaching career.

Make sure it includes the eight essential components of a strong, effective lesson plan and you'll be on your way to achieving every teacher's goal: measurable student learning.

Use the blank lesson plan template to stay organized.

1. Objectives and Goals

The lesson's objectives must be clearly defined and in lined with district and/or state educational standards.

2. Anticipatory Set

Before you dig into the meat of your lesson's instruction, set the stage for your students by tapping into their prior knowledge and giving the objectives a context.

3. Direct Instruction

When writing your lesson plan, this is the section where you explicitly delineate how you will present the lesson's concepts to your students.

4. Guided Practice

Under your supervision, the students are given a chance to practice and apply the skills you taught them through direct instruction.

5. Closure

In the Closure section, outline how you will wrap up the lesson by giving the lesson concepts further meaning for your students.

6. Independent Practice

Through homework assignments or other independent assignments, your students will demonstrate whether or not they absorbed the lesson's learning goals.

7. Required Materials and Equipment

Here, you determine what supplies are required to help your students achieve the stated lesson objectives.

8. Assessment and Follow-Up

The lesson doesn't end after your students complete a worksheet. The assessment section is one of the most important parts of all.

Source: http://k6educators.about.com/od/lessonplanheadquarters/tp/8_steps_lp.htm