Communicating clearly is one part of a successful conversation, but listening to others is just as important. Individuals with special needs plan calm responses and reactions to differing opinions with a collaborative activity.

Some types of verbal communication are just more difficult that others. High schoolers engage in a series of activities that are designed to help teens make difficult conversations easier and more effective.

R-e-s-p-e-c-t, find out what it means to your class! After a grand conversation about what is, and how one can show respect, scholars take part in a plethora of activity choices such as role playing, a game of Simon Says, wood working,...

An eye-catching hook makes a smart analogy between ingredients for a food recipe and ingredients for quality relationships. Scholars discuss and list qualities they feel contribute to positive interactions. Pupils create a recipe card...

Greed is the theme of the West African folktale, Anansi Goes to Lunch and this multidisciplinary collection of lessons. First, scholars listen to a read aloud and participate in a grand conversation about the book's key details and...

Militaries throughout history have used topography information to plan strategies, yet many pupils today don't understand it. Scholars use Legos and a contour gauge to understand how to construct and visualize topographic profiles. This...

A unique writing lesson, this plan begins with learners talking about multiculturalism in small groups. Each learner will choose a picture from a newspaper, describe it to their small group, and think about how it relates to...

Four is the perfect number—if you're talking about parallelograms. Scholars determine a possible fourth vertex of a parallelogram in the coordinate plane given the coordinates of three vertices. They read a conversation...

Eighth graders take a stand on a variety of controversial topics with a lesson on argumentative writing. As they view an informative presentation and work with collaborative groups, they decide which side of each argument they want to...

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...

When van Leeuwenhoek saw cells and single-celled organisms for the first time, he knew these small things were a big deal! Share his discoveries with young learners through a narrated video, model-building activity, and scale study....

Don't think negatively about exponents. Young mathematicians dissect a fictional conversation between pupils trying to evaluate an expression with a negative exponent. This allows them to understand the meaning of negative exponents.

Sometimes the indirect path is best. Scholars determine whether the sum of a rational number and an irrational number is irrational. Reading a transcript of a conversation between classmates leads to an indirect proof of this concept.

Through grand conversation, help scholars identify issues that harm the Earth and find solutions on how to solve them. After voting—on what your class deems the most important problem—stretch writing muscles with a problem-solution...

What one person thinks is a pest may not be a pest to someone else. Here, scholars examine the characteristics of living things and pests through grand conversation and a variety of activities. Class members play a game of pest or not a...

Groups of two to four work collaboratively to engineer a birdhouse that will stay cool in the summer heat. Teams examine several different-colored roofs, testing the efficiency of each with a heat lamp. Then, groups sketch their ideas,...

The fourth standard for reading literature in the Common Core calls for young readers to be able to determine the figurative and connotative meanings of words and phrases. Use this resource, a continuation of a series of Common Core...

Build trust—literally—with a lesson that sparks reflection, grand conversation, and creativity. Scholars construct a trust tower out of blocks showcasing a picture that represents a good deed they have done to gain trust from their...

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...

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...

In a math or life science class, "mini-me" models are created with cardstock to reflect a 1:10 scale of students' bodies. Learners measure each others' heights with meter sticks, and then reduce the size by 10. After this exercise, they...

How sustainable are cell phones? Throughout the unit, learners explore the issues around cell phones concerning sustainability. Class members take a graphical look at the number of cell phones across the world using a box-and-whisker...

Explore a basic pattern to practice writing expressions. In collaborative groups, learners examine a contextual pattern and write an expression to model it. The task encourages groups to describe the pattern in multiple ways.

Open learners' eyes to the challenge of finding safe drinking water – something we often take for granted in our country. The PowerPoint presentation includes images, graphs, diagrams, and even a video to stimulate discussion on how we...