Test your pupils' reasoning skills with several activities and a quick mystery to solve. Learners watch and analyze a few video clips that demonstrate reasoning in action, practice deduction with an interactive and collaborative...

Your new Day One activity has arrived! Impress young scholars with your scientific super powers through an engaging activity geared toward scientific thinking. Through a display of theatrics, you will debunk the scientific method as...

After examining different perspectives on book banning, scholars select a book from a list of frequently banned books and research the controversies surrounding it. They then craft an argument about their chosen book, including arguments...

Did Smitty do it, or is he a victim? Sleuths apply their observation and reasoning skills to build a case for an argumentative paragraph. Class members closely observe a cartoon, make a claim, cite evidence from the image, and support...

Twenty-one pieces of tagboard can lead your class to a greater understanding of integers when you use them to form a human number line. After creating this math tool, two strategies for adding and subtracting will have your...

Introduce pupils to the two types of reasoning, inductive and deductive. Classmates work in pairs or small groups to learn the difference between the two and apply these reasonings to develop valid conclusions. 

If there is a conditional statement, then there is a hypothesis and conclusion. Pupils learn how to identify the parts of conditional statements. Class members continue to work with conditional statements and rewrite them in their many...

Trace the links between a variety of math concepts in this far-reaching unit. Ideas that seem very different on the outset (like the distance formula and rigid transformations) come together in very natural and logical ways. This...

"Warning: Conducting this lesson may be harmful." Such statements, called "Trigger Warnings," are the focus of a two-part lesson that looks at censorship, especially the pros and cons of trigger warnings. Class members read two articles,...

Problem solving is a skill of its own. Learners use a variety of problems to encourage mental math and logic to get the correct answer. Guiding questions are provided along the way to encourage the right way of thinking to help tackle...

Celebrate April's National Poetry Month or enrich a poetry unit with a wealth of language arts material. Class members develop an oral interpretation of a poem and/or develop a podcast interview with a poet. 

Learning how to craft a cogent argument based on a solid claim, supported with evidence and solid reasoning, is an important life skill. Teach middle schoolers about argumentative writing with a lesson asking them to analyze the claims,...

Get your class outside to observe their surroundings with a lesson highlighting weather patterns and seasonal changes. First, learners take a weather walk to survey how the weather affects animals, people, plants, and trees during...

Put on your thinking caps because middle school math has never been more interesting in this huge resource full of thought provoking questions. Written as a newsletter, the resource has 10 two-page newsletters with a variety of...

Streets, bridges, and intersections, oh my! Parallel lines and transversals are a present in the world around us. Learners begin by discovering the relationship of the angles formed by parallel lines and a transversal. They then...

How exactly does a crime scene investigation work? The resource, a unit on criminology, covers everything from the deductive reasoning skills needed for detectives to DNA fingerprinting, all the way to how to gather evidence and bring...

After discussing the artistic elements and design process needed to construct the modern sculpture, Lao Tzu, kids get logical. They consider the purposeful use of space in the sculpture, design a modern piece for a specific space at...

Use the 20 Questions game to practice math vocabulary and number properties! Project a hundreds chart and hand one out to learners. Ideally, give them counters (beans would work well) to mark off the chart so you can play multiple times....

Scholars learn about a series of three challenges when they design a bus system for a small town. They determine the bus routes and then figure out the best type of fuel to use before considering the cost of going electric. Learners...

How is data able to move in a congested network? Groups simulate moving data around a congested network by passing fruit around a circle, following specific rules, until everyone ends up with their own fruit. Extension activities...

Math really is just one big puzzle waiting to be solved. Show learners that math can be intriguing and provide them with visually engaging problems and puzzles. The focus is on solving simple equations and looking at expressions. 

Take your class of youngsters on a prehistoric adventure with this four-lesson series on dinosaurs. Accompanying the Meet the Dinosaurs books by Don Lessem, these lessons engage children in writing their own dinosaur books,...

This fabulous resource is a must-have for any algebra teacher's arsenal of lessons. Developing the idea of equations and use of variables from basic physical scenarios, learners gain valuable intuition in the structure and meaning of...

Is there a way to connect creative thinking, logical reasoning, mathematical understanding, and humor? You bet there is! Kids begin by creating creative math quizzes, which require creative thinking to solve. For example, 1+1=24, one...