Curated OER
Comparing Cultural Holidays
Students discover facts about the Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead. In this compare and contrast lesson, students explore Halloween and the Day of the Dead. Students create an alter to memorialize a family member or friend that has...
Curated OER
Torn from Each Other's Arms
Students consider how the institution of family suffered under slavery. In this slavery lesson, students watch segments of "Slavery and the Making of America". Students examine the structure of the Driggus family and discuss how slavery...
Smithsonian Institution
Dia de los Muertos: Honoring our Ancestors Through Community Celebration
Oral storytelling has been an important part of every culture. The time-honored practice uses stories as a conduit for a culture's values and customs from one generation to the next. Keep the tradition going with a family interview...
National Woman's History Museum
Ida B. Wells: Suffragist and Anti-Lynching Activist
Suffragette, investigative journalist, and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells is the focus of a lesson plan that has young historians study the work of this amazing woman. Scholars watch a video biography of Wells, read the text of her...
Teaching Tolerance
Thanksgiving Mourning
Two primary sources, a speech, and an article provide tweens and teens with different perspectives of the American Thanksgiving holiday. After analyzing Wamsutta James' suppressed speech and Jacqueline Keeler's article, class members use...
Curated OER
"Wedding Celebrations Around The World"
Ninth graders research the cultural implications of wedding celebrations around the world. They study wedding celebrations before creating world map on which they place an appropriately attired wedding couple on the country they studied....
Curated OER
Frighteningly Fabulous Festivals
Students explore the significance of holiday foods, first by researching Halloween-type festivals from around the world, and then by reporting on foods related to different holidays celebrated in their homes.