How do you describe the American Dream? What motivates others to immigrate to the United States, and why do some groups have trouble attaining the American Dream? Your learners will consider these questions as they explore figurative...

Should the student population wear uniforms to school? Pupils express whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with a controversial statement, moving to a designated corner of the room to indicate their stance....

Quotation marks are the focus of this resource. In it, youngsters discover how to correctly use punctuation marks. It is meant to be carried out over a three-day period. You could shorten it, but I wouldn't. The activities are...

Here is a fantastic lesson for your fifth grade math scholars. In it, learners must determine if the classrooms of upper graders are bigger, or smaller, than the classrooms of the lower grades. Some excellent worksheets are embedded in...

When slavery ended, what did the government do to help African American during Reconstruction? An interesting instructional activity uses primary sources such as newspaper articles to help scholars analyze Reconstruction policies and how...

Seventh graders become museum conservators and undertake the hypothetical restoration of an ancient American work of art. Groups design a plan for reconstructing the work of art, outlining the steps they need to take and the materials...

In cooperative groups, emerging ecologists research assigned biomes found in Arizona. Combining photos and facts, they use PowerPoint to produce a fully automated commercial that lasts 45 seconds. In addition to the lesson outline,...

Fifth graders, in groups, list the physical characteristics of a biome and think of ways in which animals might have to adapt to live there and make a biome mobile ball that show the different types of habitats that shape the praire biome.

Here's an "old-school" lesson plan on an event in US history. High schoolers look into the massive layoffs that occurred in New Orleans in 2005. Discussion and debate take place, and groups of learners must cut and paste a series of...

Riddle me this! What do kennings, caesura, and alliteration have to do with the Nowell Codex? Introduce class members to Anglo-Saxon poetry and prepare readers for a study of Beowulf with a series of activities that...

Examine the contributions of African-Americans in the worlds of art and literature. Over the course of a few days, young scholars will read and analyze a poem, a short story, and a piece of art. They complete a range of...

This hands-on lesson takes young geometers on a tour of 2D polygons and 3D polyhedrons. After exploring different web resources and discussing geometric shapes, small groups construct models of polyhedrons using bendable straws. Note:...

Liken a cell and its organelles to a tiny person and its organs. After gathering information on cell structures and their functions, small groups collaborate to come up with an analogy of their own. They produce a collage describing the...

Students use polygons to explore division. They use pattern blocks to represent whole numbers and fractions. They discuss divisors, factors, dividend and products. In groups, students present models and solve problems. They justify their...

Before your students reached your morning class to learn about persuasive writing, they probably saw dozens of examples of persuasive communication in the form of advertisements. A short, introductory lesson inspires class members to...

Differentiate between the various genres in the visual arts world, particularly in Western painting. Your class can view and discuss, in small groups, paintings published on the National Galleries website. Then each student individually...

Students, working in groups, create "artificial seeds" for a wind dispersal experiment. After trial runs, they redesign their seeds, and re-test them under the same conditions. Finally, they interpret, compare, and evaluate the original...

Students create poems and sound compositions using instruments, sounds, and pictograph notation. After listening Debussy's Children's corner suite, they brainstorm a list of snow vocabulary words. Students write poems and in groups...

Students, working in small groups construct scale models of the planets and solar system. They examine images of Mars and discuss what might have caused the features. They record facts about their planetary research in their journals and...

Assess your new learners' writing abilities and knowledge of literary terms with these diagnostic activities. Part of a back-to-school unit, this is meant to provide the teacher with information about the ability levels of their class....

Bocce ball is a lifelong sport that can be taught to many different age levels. This is only one page of a pretty comprehensive unit. Click the link at the bottom of the page and take a look at the entire unit and adapt it to meet the...

Work with the class to investigate the concept of dividing decimals. They will use a variety of problem-solving skills in order to practice the operation of division. The teacher can use the dialogue to guide learners through the various...

Step into the hopeful and tragic world of Anne Frank with this lesson on reading in context. After complete a variety of activities related to the first two scenes of The Diary of Anne Frank, eighth graders participate in a read...

Use a kinesthetic activity to elucidate ordered pairs and coordinate planes. Arrange desks in a square array and distribute to learners cards with ordered pairs based on the locations of their seats. By having various groups of...