Free January Lessons and Classroom Activities

Winter break is over and the dog days of January have arrived - these engaging January themed lessons are perfect for grabbing student attention while reinforcing standards and

introducing new ideas.

Waiting for Winter: Snowflake Science Unit

Designed for first through third grade students, this thematic unit contains science, math and literacy across the curriculum activities – as students classify, analyze, inquire about and research snowflakes: including what snow is, snowflake categories, read along research, paragraph writing, 32-math and science task cards and more. 

Waiting For Winter Unit
Waiting For Winter Math Task Cards

Also included is a PowerPoint presentation to help teach 1st and 2nd graders the process of paragraph writing.

Martin Luther King, Jr - Differentiated Unit

Martin Luther King Jr. Cross Curricular, Differentiated Unit. The activities in this unit are engaging and perfect for grades 4-8.

Pages 3-4: Who is Martin Luther King Jr: Literacy Activity
Pages 5-8: Readers’ Theater Script “I Have a Dream.”
Page 9: “I Have a Dream Readers’ Theater Summary” Template Worksheet
Page 10: Writing Across the Curriculum: Organization Game Directions
Page 11: Organization Game Cut-able Worksheet: Words and MKL
Page 12: Vocabulary Building
Page 13: Writing Across the Curriculum: Social Students: Sentence Sorting to Building a Paragraph Instructions
Page 14: Sentence Sorting Activity and Template: MLK and the Quest for Civil Rights Pre-Writing Activity
Page 15: From Sentence Sorting to Paragraph Writing: Teacher Template – A completed template for teachers to use to teach the following…
Page 16: From Sentence Sorting to Paragraph Writing Student Template 
Page 17: I Have a Dream: “A think and write about me” activity.
Page 18: I have a Dream Activity

20 Slide PowerPoint – MLK Jr. and the Road to Civil Rights
8 Slide PowerPoint to help instruct student about Readers’ Theater Guidelines and Participation

Winter Word Search "Boggle-type" Game

Winter themed Boogle Word Search. Goes great with my Waiting for Winter -- Snowflake Science lesson! 41 cards in all.

Students love this fast-paced game for work student and spelling and reading reinforcement.  Word Seek -- Boggle is great for whole class or partner play, early finishers, literacy centers, bell ringers and warm-ups. Boggle can even be given as homework.

The rules are easy:

• Players have three minutes to find as many words as they can on a 3 x 3 grid. 
• Players have four minutes to find as many words as they can on 3 x 4 and 4 x 4 grids. Players have five minutes to find as many words on a 5 x 5 grid

Word letters must be adjoining in a chain. (Letters in the chain may be adjacent horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Words must contain at least three letters.

Scoring: The first two letters of each word do not count for score. Each player gets 1 point for each letter after the second. 

For example:

• won = 1 point
• come = 2 points
• change = 3 points

Word Seek is great for partner play, early finishers, literacy centers, bell ringers and warm-ups.

Cinderella Penguin No Prep Book Unit

This No Prep Book Unit is a companion to “Cinderella Penguin or The Little Glass Flipper” by Janet Perlman and contains pages and pages of interactive, cross-curricular and engaging activities -- all Common Core Standards-Aligned. This print-and-go unit contains interactive notebook pages, a review of Cinderella Elements PowerPoint – with compare and contrast , essays, social studies assignments, assessments and a whole lot more. Differentiated for use with the whole class.

This Math and Literacy Unit is aligned with the Common Core State Standards and guidelines for 21st Century Learning for 3rd, 4th and 5th grades and is easily adapted to all proficiency levels. Differentiated by design, this thematic unit is engaging includes the following plus a PowerPoint on the Elements of Fairy Tales Cinderella vs. Cinderella Penguin.

Cinderella Penguin No-Prep Book Unit

Cinderella Around the World 




Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti, Chapin-Pinotti, lessons, Freebielessons, freelessons, free lessons, #freelessons

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Book Unit

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland InterActive Reader

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Interactive Reader" was designed specifically with 21st Century Learning and the tenants of higher order thinking in mind. The activity infused unit study

offers built-in differentiation, is jam-packed with black-line masters that foster student engagement and higher order thinking and is easily adjustable to remedial, gifted and every student in between.

Carroll's beloved novel is laid out, chapter-by-chapter, with questions, literary study, writing activities, source document analysis, links to other resources, Socratic Seminar templates, vocabulary activities, games, interactive notebook pages and a whole lot more! There are also end of book questions and activities as well as in-depth character explanations and information on themes and other literature nuances.

A must-have for any teacher embarking on an "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" unit study.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Plot Diagram

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” Plot Diagram PowerPoint and Template: A perfect companion to any Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland book study is this Plot Diagram Teaching PowerPoint and student template.

This plot diagram is an organizational tool focusing on a pyramid or triangular shape, used to map the events of a story. This mapping of the plot structure of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland helps students visualize the key features of the story and serves as an engaging, interactive tool.

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” Guided Paragraph PowerPoint and Template

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” Guided Paragraph Teaching PowerPoint and Student Template: Perfect for student differentiation and intervention – this PowerPoint helps you walk students through writing a paragraph – that transitions into an essay.

Themes and Motifs Guided Instructional PowerPoint

Perfect for student differentiation and intervention – this PowerPoint helps you walk students the

themes and motifs of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” Formative Assessment based on Tenniel’s Pictures.

Chapin-Pinotti, Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti, Restitution