Smart ELA Bell Ringers, Warm Up Lessons, Reading Comprehension - Print & Online

These smart bell ringers are engaging warm-up activities that address a wide range of ELA standards. They are a perfect mix of literature, informational texts, and reading comprehension, and cover various topics such as fiction, poetry, literary devices, history, social studies, science, and life skills. Students are asked to read, analyze, determine the meaning of words, make inferences, provide conclusions, support claims, and make connections.

The handouts and online Easel activities are ideal for morning work, at the beginning of your lesson, to fill unexpected gaps, or to have available in your sub folder.

This resource includes 50 pages in the following formats:

1. PDF Printables and

2. Easel Activities

• All pages can be assigned directly to your students using email, Google Classroom, or another Learning Management System.
• Students complete and submit activities online.
• Teachers can provide timely feedback online (see below for more information).
• 5 pages have been turned into self-checking Easel Activities, where students can check their answers and receive immediate feedback.

The following activities are included in the resource:

Literary Connections - Excerpts from popular classics (addressing reading comprehension, elements of fiction, literary devices, and author’s choice)

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales; Kate Chopin, The Story of An Hour; Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist; Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage; Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles; Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera; William Golding, Lord of the Flies; Reyna Grande, Across a Hundred Mountains; Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea; Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild; Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird; J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye; Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; William Shakespeare, Othello; Angie Thomas: The Hate U Give

Poetry Lessons - Selection of poems with focus on poetic devices

Gwendolyn Brooks, Cynthia in the Snow; Emily Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers; A. E. Houseman, Loveliest of Trees, The Cherry Now; John Masefield,  Tewkesbury Road; Robert Frost, A Minor Bird; Langston Hughes, Dreams; William Butler Yeats, To a Child Dancing Upon the Shore; Jean Starr Untermeyer, Rain; Beowulf, Translation by Burton Raffel; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Arrow and the Song

Lessons from the Past - Important historical events (reading comprehension)

The Salem Witch Trials; The Story of Jamestown; Manifest Destiny; The Pony Express; The Louisiana Purchase; Women’s Right to Vote; Ellis Island; Civil Rights Act

Interesting Facts – Tidbits from the world of science

Bats, koalas; squirrels, bacterial versus human cells, Velcro, life expectancy, hibernation, English speakers, Cucurbitaceae, phobias, kakapos, talking to plants, grasshoppers

Quotable Quotes - Intelligent quotes by intelligent people

Walt Whitman, Nelson Mandela, Katherine MacKenett, Louisa May Alcott, Theodore Roosevelt, Aesop, Lao Tzu, Oscar Wilde, Maya Angelou, Helen Keller, Plato, Albert Einstein, Virginia Woolf, Nelson Mandela

People Who Changed the World – Short biographies (reading comprehension)

Sherman Alexie, Boudica, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Blackwell, Coco Chanel, Bessie Goldman, Frida Kahlo, Anne Manning, Isaac Newton, Jose Rizal, Boyan Slat

Art and Music - Tidbits from the world of art and music

Impressionism, iconography, social satire, nine muses of Greek mythology, Adele, Pink, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran

“What would you do?” Questions

Respond to hypothetical questions such as Would you rather…? If you were …? If you could …?

Language Arts - Fun linguistics

Pangrams, toponyms, heteronyms, contradictanyms, words that begin with X, trademarked words, palindromes, portmanteaus, proverbs, definitions of run, Shakespearean phrases

Miscellany - Collection of short texts on various subjects

The Seven Wonders of the ancient world, Winter Solstice, delectable dishes, Things you should do at least once a year; history of New Year’s resolutions, classification of animals, twelve days of Christmas, rules relating to the US flag, unlucky number 13, the Illuminati,

Looking for the Good: Resilience activity based on positive psychology

Think about and reflect on something good that happened, create positive emotions, and fuel resilience

Use the following activities to celebrate heritage months:

Activities you can use for Black History Month

Angie Thomas: The Hate U Give; Gwendolyn Brooks, Cynthia in the Snow; Langston Hughes, Dreams; Civil Rights Act; Nelson Mandela; Katherine MacKenett; Maya Angelou; Nelson Mandela; Frederick Douglass; Bessie Goldman

Activities you can use for Women’s History Month

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Kate Chopin, The Story of An Hour; Reyna Grande, Across a Hundred Mountains; Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird; Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; Angie Thomas: The Hate U Give; Gwendolyn Brooks, Cynthia in the Snow; Emily Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers; Jean Starr Untermeyer, Rain; Katherine MacKenett; Louisa May Alcott; Maya Angelou; Helen Keller; Virginia Woolf; Women’s Right to Vote; Boudica; Elizabeth Blackwell; Coco Chanel; Bessie Goldman; Frida Kahlo; Anne Manning

Activities you can use for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; Lao Tzu; Jose Rizal

Activities you can use for Hispanic Heritage Month

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera; Reyna Grande, Across a Hundred Mountains; Frida Kahlo

Activity you can use for American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month

Sherman Alexie

EASEL BY Teachers Pay Teachers – Assign Online

You can assign texts and worksheets from this resource online using Easel in one of three ways:

(1) Through Google Classroom,

(2) By generating a unique URL and pasting it into the learning management system (LMS) of your choice, or

(3) By emailing the URL to your students.

Your students will get a code that allows them to complete the activity and turn it in to you for review — all online.

Click here for more information on how to use Easel: https://blog.teacherspayteachers.com/how-to-use-easel-by-tpt/

Thank you so much and enjoy,

Charlotte