“There is nothing that becommeth a maid better than soberness, silence, shamefastness, and chastity, both of body & mind.” This line, from Thomas Bentley ‘s The Monument of Matrons published in 1582, typifies the way women were...

Ecology candidates culture pond water organisms over a few days time, then they experiment to find out how increasing nutrients affects the population. As part of a unit on water, this exploration gives your class an understanding of how...

Young scholars investigate new vocabulary words with a fun, collaborative activity. Given a deck of word cards, pairs of students flip over one at a time and independently look up the term in a dictionary. They then take turns rolling a...

Visit the Magic Treehouse and take your class on a trip through time with a reading of the children's book Mummies in the Morning. Using the story to spark an investigation into Egyptian culture, this literature unit engages...

Take the time at the end of the school year to learn from your youngsters about their experience in your class. Designed for elementary pupils, this survey asks students to comment on such elements as activities/lessons they did and...

What are the unwritten rules of formality in different social situations? Help learners identify when it is the appropriate time to be silly, funny, or serious with this collection of illustrated panels and cards.

If your language arts learners have a hard time determining the universal theme of a written work, use a straightforward worksheet to help them find it. After reviewing a list of common themes, kids note the title, character, plot, point...

What were the conditions that led to the American Revolution? What are the conditions that lead to revolution in other times and places? Class members examine primary source materials and use evidence drawn from these documents to craft...

Have you ever stretched out a Slinkie so much it wouldn't go back to its original shape? Slinkies, like all springs, follow Hooke's Law. A simulation uses springs and masses to demonstrate kinetic, potential, and thermal energy. It...

Ready to have an a-MAZE-ing time teaching electrostatics? Introduce physical science superstars to an engaging resource that tests their knowledge of attractive and repulsive forces. Pupils change the charge of a ball to guide it through...

Students calculate the speed of an object, by measuring the amount of time it takes to cover a given distance, and then divide: speed=distance/time. However, the object may not have been moving at a constant rate over the given distance....

Do your young mathematicians get paid for chores at home? Use this familiar real-world concept to explore multiplication and money math. They use a chart of chore payments to answer six questions and determine how much money Joe and...

Though the discrete content here is a pair of New York Times articles about a 1998 military strike on Iraq and the coincident impeachment by the House of Representatives of then-President Clinton, this detailed plan for creating,...

Middle Schoolers produce a class newspaper about the American cowboy and the times in which he lived with illustrations, feature stories and advertisements typical of the times. This is an ambitious, yet worthwhile project for youngsters...

Construct a maze in your classroom and have a blindfolded scientist act as a space rover, maneuvering unfamiliar terrain while another scientist plays commander. Classmates record the number of occurrences of the commander having to...

This lesson asks young readers to predict what will happen to Harry Potter. While the question has been answered by the last book and film in the series, the concept and links provided by The New York Times’ Learning Network are...

Learners read as many high-frequency words as possible in a given amount of time. Peer one reads a word from a list, and peer two points to the corresponding word as they are seen on the table. This activity is timed and peer evaluated.

A reading of “Gatsby’s Green Light Beckons a New Set of Strivers,” a New York Times article by Sara Rimer, triggers a discussion of the American Dream and what it means to strive for something. Following the discussion, class members...

Have you ever lost someone? Middle and high school learners journal about a time they experienced the loss of someone through death, divorce, moving, or another type of change. They share their responses and discuss an article relating...

Create a Height-Time plot of a bouncing ball using a graphing calculator. Graph height as a function of time and identify the vertex form of a quadratic equation that is generated to describe the ball's motion. Finally, answer questions...

This three-page learning exercise moves physics masters to show what they know about motion. They analyze graphs of time versus displacement, solve instantaneous and average velocities, solve word problems, and graph results. This is an...

At times special needs or Autistic children have a difficult time disengaging from a lesson to line up at the door. This brief strategy overview employs mini-porcupine balls and a pocket. It was developed to help pupils...

How quickly can your third graders recite their eight times table? Help them with their mental math by focusing on multiplying by eight. After completing six number sequences, pupils solve word problems and multiplication sentences. A...

Think about your favorite place ... now, think about what it looks like at different times during the day. How does the change in lighting affect the colors you see? Young artists explore the tools available in digital art software to...