Pictures and Words

Reading the Rebus
Reading Collect several rebus stories from children's magazines in your library. Read several to and with your students. Then ask the children to cut pictures out of magazines or catalogs that they could use in a rebus story. Provide construction paper hearts on which to affix the pictures. In group time, write your students' stories on chart paper.

Writing Poetry with Rebus and Rhyme
This lesson uses Jean Marzollo's book I Love You: A Rebus Poem (Scholastic, 2000) as a model to use rebus writing to create wonderful poetry; however, any of the rebus books included on the accompanying book list would be appropriate for this activity. This makes a wonderful Valentine activity, although it is certainly not limited to that holiday.

Listening Rebus
Reading Tell a story about animals, assigning each child a particular animal. Whenever his or her animal is mentioned, the child makes their animal's sound. Next, tell the story with the kids holding up signs depicting their animals. When their animals are mentioned, the children will raise their signs and growl, honk or meow.

Colorful Creative Writing Rebus
When making this craft students will use pictures and words in a rebus poem about a colorful place in their imagination.

Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Hieroglyphs
After completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to identify certain Egyptian hieroglyphs and recognize their meanings and uses as well as become familiar with aspects of ancient Egyptian culture, religion, and their relationship to hieroglyphs.