Inspire first grade artists to learn about abstract and realistic art while reading Eric Carle's Where are you Going? To See My Friend. Young artists design and make a mural collage by tearing shapes of paper while comparing English and...

Build an interest and appreciation for architecture in your young learners with this fun 10-lesson art unit. Engaging children in using their five senses, the class first observes the environment around them, paying...

Can budding writers accept constructive criticism? Learners work with their peers to gain feedback about their argumentative essay drafts. Peers give one another constructive criticism to revise their work better. Using a Peer Review...

Middle schoolers engage in a instructional activity which reminds them that root words indicate the base meaning of a word, and that those roots are found in many different words that have similar meanings. Pairs of pupils use...

Help young scholars see the important role camouflage plays in the survival of animals with a fun science lesson. Starting with an outdoor activity, children take on the role of hungry birds as they search for worms represented by...

Build visual literacy, discussion, and critical thinking skills with an innovative art lesson. Young analysts discuss the use of decalcomania, surrealism, and automatism in various contemporary pieces, discuss constructed truth, and...

Origami is an excellent way to combine Japanese culture, art, and geometric shapes into one engaging instructional activity! Scholars begin by listening to the story Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and learn the origin of...

Each group talks about how to test unknown liquids based on their findings in the previous experiment. For this second of four activities, they test unknowns on wax paper, newspaper, and construction paper. As a stand-alone, this lesson...

Build your class's knowledge with a vowel game. With a list of code words for each vowel, kids begin to construct fences with the words that share long vowel sounds.

Read and discuss "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and the gender issues that the story brings up. Use articles from the time period to analyze, complete with specific discussion questions. After two days, scholars write an essay based on topics...

Introduce and challenge the essay organization skills of your junior high writers with the paper reconstruction activity in this demonstration.  Theydetermine what the word organization means, and discover the basic organizational...

Learn about the animals of Australia with a language arts instructional activity about an Australian folktale called, Why Koala Has a Stumpy Tail. After reading the story as a class, kids discuss events and characters from the book,...

Ensure that your kids don't even consider saying "Not me!" when it comes time to read by engaging them in this set of lesson plans based around "The Little Red Hen." The class reads the story together before starting in on additional...

In a multidisciplinary lesson plan, you will focus your instruction around the West African folktale, Anansi Goes to Lunch by Bobby and Sherry Norfolk while your little learners sing songs, play games, participate in a grand...

Scholars examine newspaper articles and highlight two sight words to discover which appears more frequently. They then glue sight words onto paper to make flashcards before composing, writing, and creating picture representations of...

Who would have thought to explore the concept of race through children's literature?  After reading Bell Hooks' picture book, Skin Again, and chapter sixteen of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee, class members...

Do you remember the days when a cup of coffee cost five cents? At A.W. Dennett restaurant in 1894, you could buy a five-cent cup of coffee and as well as a five-cent slice of pie to accompany it. The menu from that year is a primary...

Japanese architecture is rich in symbolism and culture. Critical thinkers engage in three activities intended to expose them to the beauty of Japan. They read through the book, Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki and watch the...

Examine the characteristics of an effective persuasive paper. In a group, eighth graders discuss the analogy of a debate being like a persuasive paper. After brainstorming topics, they write an argument and then debate it. Secretly, the...

As part of a media literacy unit, class members establish criteria for good video reporting, and practice giving both positive (warm) and constructive (cool) criticism.

Before continuing to read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, learners need to understand why and how this document was written. First, show and discuss a video from UNICEF to demonstrate the need for such a document. Then...

What's the difference? Scholars analyze the similarities and differences between introductory and concluding paragraphs. Then, using a model essay as a guide, they write their draft position papers. 

Scholars use a set of onset and rime cards to construct and write various simple words. Pairs take turns pulling cards from a bag and blending the onset card with the rime card to create a word. They record the onset, the rime, and the...

Grading essays after reading a novel written by a lyrical master (think Nabokov, Morrison, Chabon) is a deflating experience. Why can’t your student’s display the same skill in diction as your favorite writers? Because you did not use...