Especially for Teachers

Newspaper Lesson Plans

Ideas for Elementary Language Arts and Social Studies

1. Read a story about someone in the news you would like to know more about. Then, to pretend you are going to interview that person and write questions you would ask. Bring your list of questions to class. This would probably be helpful to reinforce a lesson on writing sentences in question form, and in using questionmarks. The questions can be shared with the class and corrections can be made, if needed. Some of the interviews would probably turn into great discussions.

2. After reading a news article, draw a picture about what happened. Cut out the article and bring it to class along with the picture. This could help practice adjectives, sequences (what happened and in what order it happened), and would also share current news to keep the class informed.

3. Read an article in the newspaper about something that happened in the community. Have the children write how they feel about it, happy, angry, worried? Then, write their feelings down as a letter to the editor. Remind them to back up opinions with facts. This could help to practice the difference between facts and opinions as well as to practice writing in general.

All these activities can be assigned as homework and parents can get involved too. Someone has a newspaper they can have, like a neighbor, of family friends. Class time will be made to share them daily and maybe a mini lesson will be incorporated to reinforce the skills they were working on such as writing questions, or adjectives.

Ida Parkman
Stetson University

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