Help youngsters sharpen their memories and learn the food groups with this classic matching activity! Learners take turns flipping over cards with fun images of different fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and proteins until...

Partners and Groups become acronyms on these posters that encourage kids to respect others, stay on task, participate actively, ask questions, and more when working with others.

How are elections really run and won? Learn about special interest groups, super PACs, and lobbyists with an engaging lesson about the caucus process. Young voters research specific interest groups and analyze their part in previous and...

Get things cooking with the first lesson in this series on the science of food. Working in small groups, young scientists make and record observations about different mystery foods. These descriptions are then shared with the class and...

Continue on. Scholars continue the research they began in their expert groups in lesson six. They read text and task cards from their research folders and share what they have gathered in research thus far. Individuals then spend the...

Get your class ready to read with this anticipatory set for Running Out of Time. Small groups each consider one thought-provoking statement. After each group comes to a consensus, the whole class participates in sharing ideas and voting...

Be a team player. Scholars gather in their expert groups and discuss group norms and roles. They look at their research topics and determine how they will divide the work among themselves. Groups look over their research folders and ask...

Scholars take a close look at "The Vietnam Wars." They answer questions and discuss in groups to conclude that the author respects the Vietnamese. They participate in a modified jigsaw discussion and end the exercise with a quick writing...

Rather than waiting for the world to change, encourage your class members to become agents of change with a project that asks groups to select an issue found in Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America....

Readers of Bud, Not Buddy demonstrate their knowledge of the Great Depression with a list, group, label vocabulary strategy. Included are complete directions for the activity that will also introduce class members to the new vocabulary...

Two heads are better than one, especially during the writing process. Sometimes, scholars benefit from participating in group writing assignments, as one of the handouts in a series on specific writing assignments outlines. The process...

Continue work with an informational text by following the procedures detailed here. The plan, part of a series, focuses on My Librarian is a Camel. Class members complete text-dependent questions and then prepare for and participate in a...

Does the influence of interest groups harm a political system? Your class members will analyze the role of interest groups in American politics, as well as consider the effect of perspective, bias, loyalty, and the...

Encourage readers of Nightjohn, Gary Paulsen's young adult novel about slavery set shortly before the Civil War, to develop their categorization and organizational skills with a strategy that asks them to list all the words they can...

How do we learn the rules of society? How do beliefs and ideas affect these rules? Introduce your young sociologists to the factors that socialize individuals with a unit that uses observation and experimentation to analyze how factors...

Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is one of the most prominent and influential books to come out of the existential movement. Host a group discussion in which learners list different characteristics of existent art, group...

Group members take on roles to create a positive classroom community. Learners perform their role—leader, recorder, presenter, timekeeper, encourager, and collector—in preparation for a formal presentation of their positive thinking...

There's no I in collaboration! Scholars work in small groups to write a Readers Theater script for a scene from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Next, within their small groups, pupils discuss how their scenes communicate the main...

Expert groups discuss the theme of their myths and the life lessons people learn from it. They then regroup their triads so that there is a pupil from each expert myth group and share details about their myths. The class also talks about...

Revision is the key to great writing. Individuals revise their readers theater scripts and write a group conclusion. Scholars then perform their scripts for another group and receive feedback.

High schoolers work in four different groups to examine the many factors that led to the American Civil War. They research an assigned topic, prepare questions, and finally engage in a class discussion using the Socratic Seminar method.

The twelfth instructional activity of this unit builds on the skills developed in the previous instructional activity, as fourth graders continue their quest to become experts on colonial trade by listening to interviews with historical...

Kindergarteners study beginning letter sounds in this interactive plan. They will match picture cards to the letter sound that each image begins with. After working together as a whole group, pupils participate in a game in which they...

Heart of Darkness can challenge even the best readers. Here's a pre-reading strategy that will engage class members and provide background and context for Conrad's study of racism, savagery and imperialism. Class members brainstorm,...