Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

Young explorers examine the route that Marco Polo and his father traveled to reach China. They examine online maps of the Silk Road and harsh terrain of Afghanistan to determine challenges that may have been encountered during travel.

To better understand the migrant experience during the Great Depression, pupils analyze two primary resources: photographs by Dorothea Lange and a U.S. Map that shows the Dust Bowl. They compare and contrast Lange's images to Steinbeck's...

Florida's state quarter has an image of a space shuttle and a Spanish Galleon on its reverse side. Pupils will examine the state quarter and think about how the Spanish explorers and Space explorers are the same and different. The class...

Role-play and simulation exercises are fantastic ways to help learners understand the reality behind many social and historical events. Pretending they are colonists, upper graders choose a location, create a history, establish laws, and...

What better way to make predictions about future weather and climate patterns than with actual climate data from the past? Young climatologists analyze data from 400,000 to 10,000 years ago to determine if climate has changed over...

Young historians compare the presentation of medical care during the Civil War in passages from fictional and nonfictional texts. They examine passages from Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Soldier's...

Climate change and weather extremes impact every species, but this lesson focuses on how these changes effect polar bears. After learning about the animal, scholars create maps of snow-ice coverage and examine the yearly variability and...

Can a presidential election cause a civil war? Learners research the events surrounding the presidential election of 1860 in a lesson that explores America's history. Using maps, videos, and primary sources, they uncover, brainstorm, and...

To understand how personal perspectives can affect policy and politics, scholars examine the woman suffrage media map and historical artifacts to analyze arguments for and against women's suffrage. Class members then take on the role of...

Do not overlook this set of lessons just because your school does not have a data analysis system. There is plenty of material here to administer a complete mini unit on the formation, distribution, and properties of coal. Since it...

Learners examine how American Indians are represented in today's society. They read stories, analyze maps, and complete a chart and create an illustration about a specific tribe.

Middle schoolers are introduced to the concept of three Abrahamic religions and complete the Comparative Religion Exercise. They view slides after taking their best guesses and read the article, "The Path to Peace Runs Through a History...

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...

Pupils complete readings, a group activity using cards, and a writing activity to better understand people's lives during the American Revolution. The resource emphasizes people such as the militiamen, women, officers, and children,...

Numerous people from China immigrated to the US during the era of industrialization and expansion. Provide your class with a glimpse into the life of a Chinese immigrant through the poetry they left behind. They then compose a poem of...

An informative resource covers the event of John Brown's Raid, an event that became an important part of West Virginia history. It serves as a standalone and covers the event and John Brown's life in depth using group work, online...

The power of a picture. During the events surrounding World War I, propaganda posters were widely distributed in American society to sway the emotions of its citizens. By analyzing World War I propaganda posters in the first installment...

An ambitious and engaging lesson on the Westward Movement for your young scholars to enjoy! Groups of learners rotate between learning tasks such as learning about the Chislom Trail, Lewis and Clark, and the Gold Rush. A WebQuest is also...

Investigate the growth and development of New York City with the final instructional activity in this four-part series on skyscrapers. Learners first explore the concept of urban growth by looking closely at a series of three paintings...