Celebrate inventions such as lightning rods, bifocals, and stoves with a Ben Franklin Day. Young historians conduct research and write a paragraph about an accomplishment of Benjamin Franklin including an illustration...

Entitled American Studies, this small unit covers various topics related to the study of the United States. Learners warm up by creating a dictionary of democracy, then dive into three different lessons focused on government, famous...

Explore the Great Depression! Discover the challenges people experienced during the time period. Learners investigate photographs from the Dust Bowl and WWII era and create a story line about the photographs, writing a newspaper article...

What does it mean to be American? Explore the constitution and what it really means to be a citizen here. First, learners of all ages will investigate different primary source documents. Then, they establish each document's...

Pupils explore observation while making connections between observation skills and careers (like how farmers observe the weather). They view a variety of nature photographs on the computer and practice their observation skills by...

An interesting article on editors helps young writers understand the conventions of written English. They read a news article about an editor traveling America correcting spelling and punctuation errors on signs.  They discuss...

Reading, writing, and rings! A lesson from NASA combines space science with authentic reading and writing tasks. Included in this lesson are pre-reading activities, four mini informational booklets on Saturn, a structured...

Students reverse engineer a cereal. In this dietary lesson plan students identify the minerals that the human body needs to function. Students examine how foods are fortified by food engineers. Students find the amount of iron in a...

A creative spin occurs when one pupil acts as author Ann M. Martin. Using a Q & A at the back of her book A Dog's Life, other classmates ask the "author" questions. They discuss the reasons why they know the book is from a...

In small groups, fourth graders identify different sources of renewable and non-renewable energy. They research the pros and cons of using each of these resources. They rank household appliances according to energy usage and efficiency....

Elementary schoolers examine the components of reading nonfiction. They use think-alouds to help them complete reading the selected sections. They also identify text features as they read.

Third graders construct numbers to the millions place. In this 30-page place value lesson, learners create numbers and evaluate the place value of digits. They explore standard and expanded form of numbers. An incredible resource!

U.S. immigration is the focus of a unit on social justice. Over the course of a school year, young historians read a variety of texts to learn about four waves of immigration that have occurred over time in the U.S. An emphasis on...

Pupils share examples of good sportsmanship, then read a news article about a team helping an injured player score a home run. The teacher introduces the article with a discussion and vocabulary activity, then students read the news...

Students write a journal exercise that relates to pets. They collect information from each other in order to practice making and interpreting bar graphs. They Continue building different kinds of graphs with the group.

Eager ecologists explore ecosystems through video and photographs of a Mangrove. They discuss the animals in this habitat and how they interact with each other after reading and discussing "The Sea, the Storm and the Mangrove Tangle."...

Students observe the sounds of different brass instruments in order to understand how to create different pitches. In this musical instructional activity, students create a "brass" instrument from everyday household objects. The students...

Fourth graders examine the myths of King Arthur. They compare/contrast versions of the story, The Sword in the Stone, write a letter, identify and analyze characters, sequence events, and write observations and answer questions in a...

Learners create living artifacts dealing with different times and cultures. They explore Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, Islam, Africa, and the United States.

Alliterative adjective nicknames generate stories inspired by Rosemary Wells' book Noisy Nora (also a thematic complement to any class with children who make a ruckus to get attention). Class members explore basic story elements --...

Scholars learn to use digital cameras to take pictures of natural subjects. They will examine the use of digital cameras, how to download photos, and to develop a digital project. They take nature pictures and develop a Power Point or...

Students explore crystals through the story Snowflake Bentley and then create crystal pictures of their own. For this interdisciplinary lesson, they create a crystal web chart on chart paper, design artificial snowflakes, and write poems...

Students study life cycles including developing their understanding of the human life cycle. They decide where they are in the human life cycle and provide reasons for that placement. They compare the human life cycle to that of the...

Native American studies is fun, educational, and highly motivating. Fifth graders will gain a deeper understanding of the six major pre-Columbian culture areas on the North American continent. They will choose one group and conduct...