From cover: "Entertaining, reproducible poems are paired with complete lessons to target grammar concepts."

No kidding, this is a collection of grammar lessons that teachers and students will love! Poems by Jack Prelutski, Shel Silverstein, and others who take a playful approach to language introduce each grammar concept--from parts of speech to sentence construction and agreement. Lessons include an engaging modeled writing activity, provide helpful ways to explain grammar concepts to students, and support student understanding with hands-on extension activities that appeal to all types of learners.

Acclaimed author Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal-winning novel-in-verse explores the life of fourteen-year-old Billie Jo growing up in the dust bowls of Oklahoma. Out of the Dust joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ."A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands.To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. While others flee from the dust bowl, Billie Jo is left to find peace in the bleak landscape of Oklahoma -- and in the surprising landscape of her own heart.

Teaching grammar is easy and entertaining with this special collection of lively "learn-the-rule" poems, companion mini-lessons, and engaging practice sheets! Each reproducible poem foucses on a key topic—parts of speech, capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, etc.—and is so compelling your students will really master these essential rules once and for all. A great way to reach and teach children of all learning styles! For use with Grades 3-6.

"As teachers today, everything we teach has to be turbo-charged with skills and the promise of advancing our students academically. Here's the cool thing: poetry can get you there. It is inherently turbo-charged. Poets distill a novel's worth of content and emotion in twenty lines. The literary elements and devices you need to teach are all there, powerful and miniature as a Bonsai tree." -Paul B. Janeczko You'd like to teach poetry with confidence and passion, but let's face it: poetry can be intimidating to both you and your students. Here is the book that takes the fear factor out of poetry and shows you how to use this powerful genre to spark student engagement and meet language arts requirements. Award-winning poet Paul B. Janeczko is the master for creating anthologies for pre-teen and adolescent readers, and here he's chosen 20 contemporary and classic selections with step-by-step, detailed lessons for investigating each poem from the inside out. Kids learn to become active readers of poetry, using graphic organizer worksheets to help them jump over their fear and dive into personal, smart, analytical responses. There's no better genre than poetry for helping students gain perspective on their own identities and their own worlds, and Paul provides a space on each reproducible poem for private thoughts, questions, feelings, and ideas. Your students will discover what each poem means to them. The 20 poems in this collection were chosen for their thought-provoking topics; compelling real-world themes that lead to conversation and collaboration in middle school classrooms. And by showing you how the poems and activities address the common core standards for English Language Arts (complete with a sample chart linking the poems to the standards), Paul provides a clear understanding of how you can "get there" using poetry. You can cultivate a passion for poetry in your classroom. Take the journey with Paul B. Janeczko and grow in confidence with your students, meeting some standards along the way.

This book is designed to give an introduction to the eight parts of speech. There are eleven poems included. Each poem is written to help the student identify the different parts of speech and to anchor the concept into memory. Spending time reading, chanting, writing, singing, drawing, coloring, and reviewing the poems is important for retention. The first day a poem is introduced, you will see it illustrated by the author. Spend a great deal of time reading, coloring, and chanting it. Have fun! The next page is another copy of the poem with no illustration. This page will be used for the student to illustrate the poem over time. You will see in the following pages directions for "Poem Work." These pages will be found throughout the book with a clipboard edge. The student will enjoy the process of sketching, over lining, and coloring the poems as he or she progresses through the book. If the student forgets the difference between two parts of speech, direct the student back to the poem to refresh memory. This is an important part of studying and learning.The student will also be engaging in many sorting tasks. The student will cut out words, sort and manipulate, and record the sorts on the pages provided. Students will save their words in a Ziploc bag to use for a few days at a time. The student will be notified at the end of the page when it is time to throw away the words.

Give students the power of language by using the inspiring ideas in this very readable book.