Common Core ELA Activities: Month by Month Writing, Speaking and Listening Activities Aligned with the Common Core

A school year includes many odd sorts of days.

• You unexpectedly finish a unit on Thursday and don't want to start a new one until Monday.
• Holidays or special events make regular lessons difficult.
• You're sick and need a substitute teacher for a day.

This group of seasonal ELA and writing lessons is designed to fill in those odd days with fun, easy, lessons which require a minimum of preparation and yet still meet the needs of the Common Core State Standards. We suggest activities for each month, but most activities are flexible enough for any season. Meets Common Core Curriculum Needs Each lesson is correlated to appropriate Common Core curriculum maps.

The Common Core State Standards (corestandards.com) include ten anchor standards each for writing and reading and six anchor standards for language. Each ELA activity in this book will list the anchor standards addressed, thus making them flexible enough to fit any grade level. Each activity is meant to be:

• Flexible
• Fast and easy preparation
• Fun for students
• Aligned to the CCSS
• Correlated to CCSS curriculum maps

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• August 26 National Dog Day (argument)
• September 3 Skyscraper Day (informative/expository)
• October 2 - Write a Comic Strip (comic strip/narrative)
• November 21 - World Hello Day (letter writing/optional argument)
• December - Rudolph's Top 5 Writing Tips (narrative)
• January- Frosty the Snowman (narrative)
• February- Evaluate a Website (argument)
• March - Gingerbread Man (folk tale/narrative)
• April 5 - National Read a Road Map Day (Reading/Creating maps as informational text)
• May 20 - Endangered Species Day (Informative/expository)