You are sure to want to use this informational text article with your students! This is an article about Abe Lincoln and his rise to the presidency. It is approximately 1,400 words long and has illustrations that match the text. As well, there is a ten question formative quiz at the conclusion of the article. Questions range from multiple choice to open ended short answers. Your students are sure to enjoy this text!

This is an awesome list of one hundred December words to use as a springboard for writing in December. These words will aid in narrative, informative, and argumentative writing as well as poetry! This sheet can be given to each student to place in his/her Writer’s Notebook!

This is an awesome list of November words to use as a springboard for writing in November. These words will aid in narrative, informative, and argumentative writing as well as poetry! This word bank is comprehensive of the many words that come to mind during the month of November and are sure to get your students' creative juices flowing! There are approximately 50-55 words that spur your students' brains for all kinds of writing-- narrative, expository, argumentative, etc. Use this November word bank for writing, ABC order, poetry, etc. It's uses are only limited by your imagination!This sheet can be given to each student to place in his/her Writer’s Notebook!

May is right around the corner! Use this resource in a multitude of ways! This is an awesome list of more than 100 May words to use as a springboard for writing in March. These words will aid in narrative, informative, and argumentative writing as well as poetry! These sheets can be given to each student to place in his/her Writer’s Notebook! Students will hugely enjoy writing poetry during the month of May when so much state testing occurs. Students might write cinquains, diamontes, haikus, and other forms of poetry throughout the month. Additionally, utilize this May word bank to help jog your students’ brains for topics in writing! This May word bank may serve to keep their creative juices flowing. The uses of the word bank are limitless!

Here is an October word bank that will completely come in handy for a Writer's Notebook. This word bank is comprehensive of the many words that come to mind during the month of October and are sure to get your students' creative juices flowing! There are approximately 20-25 words that spur your students' brains for all kinds of writing-- narrative, expository, argumentative, etc. Use this October word bank for writing, ABC order, poetry, etc. It's uses are only limited by your imagination!

Perhaps most importantly in today's information age, thinking skills are viewed as crucial for educated persons to cope with a rapidly changing world. Many educators believe that specific knowledge will not be as important to tomorrow's workers and citizens as the ability to learn and make sense of new information. —D. Gough, 1991 With that being said, it is critical for students to learn strategies to employ when thinking through a scenario, a problem, a situation, a research project, etc. This set of mini-posters can be used as a year long resource in any classroom to equip students with eight strategies that students should learn to use each and every day as they strive to be successful in school. With a relatively small size, the mini-posters will fit perfect above a white board or on a bulletin board as a constant reminder for students to persevere and solve problems when working.

Universal Studios is at it again... Your students are going to absolutely love this selection. Use this informational text article to “hook them and hold them” for absolute sure! What a better way to practice metacognitive strategies for close reading. This article can be utilized to practice all of the many close-reading strategies that you have worked all year on with your students, which we all know, are life-long reading skills! The selection includes nonfiction information in regards to the new park opening on April 7, 2016, at Universal Studios, in Hollywood. The selection is approximately 750 words long and proves to provide the rigor needed for the complexity that is required of students’ text! At the conclusion of the article, there is a formative assessment (12 questions) that you might use for a teaching opportunity to go over specific skills and how the answer is derived (implicitly or explicitly stated for example) or of course it might be used independently as a comprehension check. There are many, many ways to utilize this selection to suit the needs of your classroom! I hope your students enjoy!

You will not want to miss this series of packets on the novel, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. In this first packet, you will find a character chart for each of the characters introduced in chapter one. The student must list several pieces of information as they connect deeper and deeper with each character. Also, there are potentially seventeen vocabulary words in this first chapter; therefore, there is a vocabulary template for each of the chosen vocabulary words. Finally, there is a comprehension sheet for this first chapter, which has twelve open-ended questions of a variety of different levels of thinking. This comprehension sheet might be used for a formative assessment/quiz at the end of each chapter.

You will not want to miss this resource! In this packet you will find five different templates for opinion/argumentative writing. The templates are themed with candy bars to include: Snickers, Reeces, Almond Joy, Twix, and Butterfinger. Using the templates, students are able to form their opinion of one of the candy bars. Next, they give the first reason for their opinion. Then, they give an example. Next, they state their second reason for forming their opinion and give another example. Finally, they formulate a third reason for their opinion complete with an example. Then, finally, they are to write a final opinion statement. Students are sure to be completely engaged with such an awesome topic. What child does not like any of these chocolate bars… not to mention what teacher wouldn’t enjoy teaching opinion/argumentative writing with such a scrumptious topic.

In this packet of mini-posters you are sure to find the literary device that you need to use with your students. Specifically, you will find Fourteen Mini-Posters each Depicting a Literary Device to include: alliteration, allegory, irony, personification, hyperbole, imagery, simile, metaphor, idiom, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, pun, and palindrome~ These mini-posters are valuable tools in using on bulletin boards, center rotations, and as reference tools all year long in a language arts classroom! Your students are sure to love them!

This is an awesome packet to utilize to teach opinion writing in grades, three, four, and five. This packet contains seven different sources which all have critical information in trying to formulate an opinion in whether one should buy an artificial tree or a real tree during this Christmas season. Five of the sources are articles from the web and include the following titles: (1) Real of Plastic: Many Consumers Will Be Asking Themselves That Question This Season; (2) It’s Environmentally and Traditionally Wrong to Buy and Use Plastic Products to Celebrate Christmas… Here’s Why?; (3) Dear Earth Talk: What’s Better for the Environment, a Fake or Real Christmas Tree?; (4) Buy a Real Christmas Tree and Support Our Economy?; and (5) Real vs. Fake Christmas Trees: Which is Better for the Environment? Next, there are two other sources which are graphs/charts and include: (1) China Tops in Fake Christmas Trees and (2) Tree Purchases (in millions). Students can critically read each of these sources to help them formulate an opinion. Upon much discussion and examination of each of the seven sources, students then can complete one of the two graphic organizers provided to frame their opinion writing. Both organizers allow the students to provide an opinion based on what they have read. Additionally, they are asked to give reasons and evidence for their opinion. These organizers pave the way for the writing of the opinion piece asked for in CCSS: (W.3.a,b,c,d) (W.4.a,b,c,d) and (W.5.a,b,c,d).

Have fun with this resource set of mini-posters to explain a plot sequence to your students while using the concept of roller coasters to illustrate your explanation. This set of mini—posters includes includes six illustrations of how to explain the plot sequence to your students from the beginning, middle, and then to the end! Your students will love the roller coaster illustrations! This resource is perfect for the reading/language arts classroom to display all year long!

This is an awesome set of seven mini-posters that will easily fit on a bulletin board or above the whiteboard in your classroom for easy reference all year long! These posters highlight editing and revision techniques that all good and great writers adhere too! As you work with the Common Core State Standards, particularly the writing standards, refer to each of these editing suggestions all year long with your students so that these suggestions simply become habits of mind when they write in any genre and narrative!

Show your students there is more than one way to express their words in poetry! In this packet, you will find eight mini posters each featuring a form of poetry to use when teaching each instructional format. Each poster also has an example of the type of poem explained. Students are sure to love writing these forms of poetry about their favorite topics. As well, this could be converted into a Christmas poetry unit utilizing the awesome Christmas scenes as springboards for brainstorming. Forms of poetry included are: limericks, diamantes, cinquains, haikus, couplets, acrostics, shapes, and free verse.

This product is a collection of teaching and learning activities for grades second through fifth on the topic of scarecrows. What a better theme than scarecrows for fall learning! This unit includes scarecrow humor, poetry writing with scarecrows, opinion/argumentative writing, informative writing and sequencing in a "how to" piece of writing, designing and publishing a mini-book from "how-to" work to share with younger children orally, categorizing the history of scarecrows, conducting research skills with scarecrows to determine potential problems with the different designs, and reading and comprehending informational text passages in regards to the history of scarecrows! What an awesome fall learning experience for your students during this favorite time of the school year!

This instructional resource is a packet centering around the poem, Polka Dot Pajamas. Children will delight in the rhyme, rhythm, and pattern of this poem. Included are several literacy extensions that reinforce many Common Core State Standards to include choral reading, response and chant, constructing a similar poem, identifying adjectives, and sequencing the events in the poem. There is also a formative assessment with ten statements about the events in the poem for the students to sequence.

You surely do not want to miss this resource! This packet is 32 pages long and focuses on argumentative/persuasive writing. The students conduct research on the different types of Christmas lights and how to “elegantly” decorate their tree using the appropriate lights. After conducting research and reading articles which are provided including the source, the students develop a “hook” statement that will allow the readers to want to read more to determine the best decision to make in terms of buying and decorating with the proper Christmas lights. Next, after developing the “hook” statement, students utilize a graphic organizer that is provided, and develop their claim and actually state it. The next part of the graphic organizer allows the students to state three reasons why their claims is the best decision to make. As well, after stating and writing each particular reason, there is also a space on the graphic organizer for students to write their evidence in the form of a sentence that supports their specific reason for the claim. Finally, at the end of the graphic organizer, the students are to provide a concluding sentence for their claim. Students will enjoy this particular activity so much during the holiday season; you can’t go wrong with this teaching and learning activity!

Are you working on trying to reinforce nouns, adjectives, facts versus opinion phrases, and synonyms? Is it necessary in your classroom to scaffold instruction in terms of rigor level? If so, this packet is for you and your classroom. This packet contains ten absolutely gorgeous fall scenes from which students can create cinquains. After each fall scene is cinquain pattern one, two, or three. Pattern one tends to be less difficult, patten two follows a parts of speech pattern, while pattern three focuses on syllables. This poetry packet on cinquains is great for whole group instruction, small group instruction, as well as in a poetry center. Students will be very proud of their poetry they create. Upon completion, publish a book of cinquains for fall. The beautiful, fall scences serve as a springboard students’ thinking and constructing. Students might also take the opportunity to recite their poetry to the class and focus on their speaking and listening skills!

When teaching the writing process, utilize this mini-poster set, which includes ten posters, for easy reference to point out all of the different purposes for why writers write! These mini-posters are the perfect size for being placed above the whiteboard all year long or they will fit perfect on a bulleting board for referencing. Happy Writing!

Use these six mini-posters for easy reference in establishing great beginnings with bringing writing to life. These can serve as a year long reference for students! Each poster focuses on a different way to begin one’s writing and an example is given for each way to begin. This is a great resource for any classroom that will focus on different aspects of writing all year!