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eSource: Free Teaching Guides
Select a product from the list below to view available teaching guides. Use the tags on left to filter the list.
Expecting Animal Babies
In these hilarious guides for animal parents, read all about how animals raise their young. The fun Q & A format, lighthearted tone, and bright illustrations inform and entertain. View →
Experience Personal Power
Experience Personal Power is a four-book series to help young readers build personal power to feel secure and confident with themselves. Each book helps kids learn to act, feel, and speak in ways that foster a life of balanced activity and self-care. Research shows that… View →
Exposing Torture
Torture. According to Henry Shue, professor of politics and international relations at the University of Oxford in England, “No other practice except slavery is so universally condemned in law and human convention. Yet, unlike slavery…torture is widespread and growing.” Why… View →
Fall Fun (Early Bird Stories ™)
Entertaining stories follow diverse characters as they celebrate aspects of fall. Each book is sprinkled with critical thinking, recall, and text feature questions to encourage reader engagement. In the back of the books, photos accompany fun facts about fall, and educators can also… View →
Fashion Rules!
During the Middle Ages, your position in life was based on birth. This position would follow you throughout your life. To make it easy for others to know your social class, rules about what you could wear—or not wear—were created. Such rules, called sumptuary laws, determined colors of… View →
Finding S.A.M.
Twelve-year-old Zach feels powerless over his autistic and often embarrassing brother who counts light bulbs and wears a Superman shirt every day. In desperation, Zach turns to an imaginary brother in his search for finding normal. Zach just wants a normal seventh grade year where he can View →
First Step Nonfiction — American Holidays
These content-rich resources give readers an understanding of why and how we celebrate our national holidays. A simple timeline in the back of each book clarifies how the holiday started and evolved, while a fast-facts section provides interesting details from history and today. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Animal Adaptations
Introduce the concepts of adaptation and habitat to beginning readers. Each title presents the animals found in a specific habitat and invites readers to explore how the animals are adapted to their surroundings. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Animal Families
Facilitate students’ understanding of how young animals resemble their parents. Engaging photos and simple sentence structure will help early emergent readers grasp these concepts quickly. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Animal Homes
Trees aren’t just for birds! Animals live in a variety of homes in every habitat. Direct picture-to-text correspondence makes this series an excellent choice for the budding zoologists in the classroom. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Animal Life Cycles
Captivating photographs of familiar animals help readers learn about a variety of animal life cycles. The selected subjects represent five major classes of animals—insects, birds, amphibians, mammals, and reptiles. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Animal Traits
Beginning readers will enjoy discovering the traits shared by different animals. They will delight in learning that humans share some of those traits too! Full-color photographs support the text. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Backyard Critters
Engage young readers with basic yet astounding scientific facts about the tiny creatures that live in backyards and parks across the country. Caption call-outs highlight key visual details in the books’ eye-catching images, and informative chapter headings assist emergent readers… View →
First Step Nonfiction — Balance and Motion
This series introduces students to different motion concepts—from spinning and rolling and staying still to going from here to there. Colorful photos and simple sentence constructions support beginning readers while teaching key science content. This series meets both science and reading View →
First Step Nonfiction — Basic Human Needs
This delightful series teaches students about everyone’s basic human needs. Colorful photographs support vocabulary as students learn about communities and the needs we all share. Supports social studies curriculum. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Body Coverings
This beginning reader series describes the different body coverings of familiar animals. Vibrant color photos correspond directly with each page’s simple text to reinforce concepts and vocabulary. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Calendars
Build readers’ understanding of how we measure time using calendars. Custom photographs illustrate various types of calendars and time-keeping measures, while kid-friendly examples convey the types of the activities done during the day, the week, and months in the year. An activity View →
First Step Nonfiction — Changing Forms
This series will help students discover how familiar objects change form through heating and cooling. See what happens to popcorn, ice cream, or candles when they are heated or cooled. Each book offers a close yet accessible look at physical or chemical processes—a key component of View →
First Step Nonfiction — Changing Matter
This science series explains how some forms of matter respond to various forces. Simple text and vivid color photographs encourage students to observe, describe, record, and predict the many types of changes in matter. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Citizenship
This series highlights essential character values that help people get along and be good citizens. Simple text and photographs offer concrete examples, while bulleted lists in the back of each book provide ideas for how readers can achieve these traits at home and at school. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Classroom Pets
Introduce students to the dos and dont’s of taking care of common classroom pets. Readers will learn what type of container their pet needs, what their pet eats, and what its daily habits are. Fun facts in the back of each book will also capture interest. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Colors
Using simple vocabulary and photographs, this series introduces beginning readers to colors. The easy-to-read, repetitive format helps students recognize sight words and become familiar with simple sentence construction. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Communities
Introduce young readers to the types of communities around them. Colorful photographs support the simple text and illustrate the similarities and differences of living in urban, suburban, and rural communities. These books support key curriculum standards for the primary grades. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Community Buildings
Give beginning readers a peek inside community buildings and familiarize them with the objects and people commonly found there. Color photos directly correspond to the simple text on each page. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Conservation
Create a classroom of conservationists! Each of these simple books examines way students can help conserve resources in their community. The simple text and corresponding photographs will support students as they learn about these important concepts. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Discovering Nature's Cycles
Designed for students at a first grade reading level, these titles help young readers identify and predict cycles in the natural world through examining animal behavior or natural phenomena. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Early Math
In this series basic concepts from early math curriculum are introduced using fun and familiar objects. These books support a well-balanced math program focusing on developing whole-number concepts and using patterns and sorting to explore numbers, data, and shapes. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Early Math Set II
More basic math concepts are introduced using fun and familiar objects. Readers will learn about patterns and sorting and develop whole number concepts. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Ecology
Explore the concept of interdependence of life with young readers. Each of these engaging, photographic books looks at how people, plants, and animals need a healthy environment—and each other—to survive. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Exploring Government
This set in the trusted First Step Nonfiction brand explains how government works, what its basic functions are, and how it affects our daily lives. From elections to citizenship, these titles will help young readers understand the key concepts of government. Bright,… View →
First Step Nonfiction — Exploring Materials
Clear photographs introduce beginning readers to common objects made from the same material. Students can compare and contrast the properties of the materials while improving their reading skills. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Farm Animals
This series explains the unique features and roles of various farm animals using simple text and color photographs. A diagram and fun facts complete this introduction to familiar, kid-friendly animals. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Feelings
Students will relate to the feelings addressed in these picture-filled books. Simple language familiarizes students with the written forms of words they already know, while teaching about the cause-and-effect relationships that evoke certain emotions. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Food Groups
Build nutritional awareness in beginning readers through this appetizing series. The main text explains why each food group is beneficial and how much to eat. Kids will especially enjoy the trivia in the back of the book. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Forces and Motion
Readers will easily grasp central concepts of physics in this fun series. From roller coasters to pool floats, and swings to hula hoops, the examples in the text and photographs illustrated each force or motion in the series. Rich back matter offers additional facts about the physical… View →
First Step Nonfiction — Geography
This series teaches beginning readers about geography, introducing maps, globes, and simple geography terms. Color photos support each concept. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Government
This social studies series explores the concepts of government in relation to students’ family, school, community, and country. Broad concepts are introduced using simple explanations and familiar examples. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Graph It!
Informative photographs and simple texts familiarize readers with a variety of graphs. Students will see how graphs organize data and make it easier to understand. This series meets standards for both math and language arts. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Habitats
Readers will travel to a variety of environments in this engaging series. The simple text and striking photography explore the types of plants and animals that live in each habitat. The books also shows the contrasts within a type of habitat—illustrating, for example, that some… View →
First Step Nonfiction — Hard Consonants
Engaging photos fully support readers as they learn simple words that use sounds of seven hard consonants. The words come together on the page to build a complete sentence. Students will feel the joy of building their reading skills as they successfully identify each word and read the… View →
First Step Nonfiction — Kinds of Matter
Students will enjoy learning about solids, liquids, and gases while improving their reading skills. Full-color photographs and easy sentences introduce students to the three types of matter. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Kinds of Plants
Vibrant photographs and simple vocabulary introduce students to fruits, vegetables, grains, and flowers. Students learn about different types of plants while improving their reading skills. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Kinds of Weather
Students will learn general terms to describe various weather conditions in this easy-to-read series. Key terms are repeated while sensory cues describe what a child might see or feel in various weather conditions. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Landforms
Simple sentences and vivid color photos explain the features of various landforms. These books define each landform and explain what it looks like, how it is formed, and how it is useful to people, plants, and animals. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Learn about Advertising
Build critical thinking skills in young readers by helping them understand the concept of advertising. Simple texts focus on the places where kids encounter advertising and explain how ad messages influence viewers. This series supports media literacy standards and shows students how to… View →
First Step Nonfiction — Let's Look at Plants
Vibrant color photographs and simple sentences introduce students to the parts of plants. Students will love learning about plants while improving their reading skills. This series meets both science and reading standards. View →
First Step Nonfiction — Let's Watch the Weather
This simple series introduces emergent readers to the ins and outs of weather, from what sunlight does to what a weather forecast is. Vibrant photos directly match the text on each page, and curricular features such as chapter headings and photo captions help kids learn about weather in… View →
First Step Nonfiction — Light and Sound
This simple, engaging series for beginning readers illuminates the basic properties of light and sound, from colors, shadows, and vibrations to ways we use light and sound to communicate. Bright photos, accessible text, and curricular features such as chapter headings and photo captions… View →