It's the classic scene: Tom Sawyer is whitewashing a fence. Expose your learners to Mark Twain's humor while reinforcing reading comprehension. Eighth graders are encouraged to read and reread, achieving as much exposure to the text...

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....

How can congruent triangles help mark a soccer field? This is just one question your classes can answer after solving the real-world problems in the instructional activity. Each example posed through a word problem elicits higher-order...

Scholars take a close look at evaluating sources and the information that comes from them. Learners review their research plans, use a handout organizer to learn how to take notes, and begin annotating correctly. They practice what they...

Young readers can be exposed to the literary works of Mark Twain as they interact with challenging text and gain experience by reading the complex passages of chapter two "The Glorious Whitewasher" from his famous book, The Adventures of...

Small groups of life science learners look at Allison's symptoms and discuss a diagnosis. They use a chart of illnesses and draw symptom clues from an envelope to determine what illness she has. A lesson like this gives children an...

Post-It notes, highlighting, underlining. Sam Anderson’s New York Times Magazine article, “What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text,” launches a study of “marginalia,” or writing thoughts in the margins of a text. After...

Go beyond the basic formulas and uncover the surface area and volume of 3-D shapes with this comprehensive and organized worksheet packet. The problems include the basic formula computations while also challenging your learners to derive...

Bingo! Practice vocabulary from William Shakespeare's The Tempest with a fun matching game. As you call out the definitions, class members mark the new vocabulary words that match and try to get five in a row.

The ninth in a fourteen-lesson series, this plan marks a sort of midpoint in a unit devoted to the study of short stories. Pupils learn about theme and work on their short story projects by adding to their blogs, checking in with the...

A simple, yet memorable, way of practicing with displacement vectors is described here. Divide your class into groups and assign each a different landmark on campus. They measure smaller legs of the path from the classroom to their...

Geometry meets earth science as high schoolers investigate the cause and features of the four seasons. The effects of Earth's axis tilt features prominently, along with both the rotation of the earth about the axis and its orbit...

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...

Gradually build understanding of author's point of view through a scaffolded set of exercises. Moving from direct instruction, to collaborative work, and eventually to independent practice, these steps will assist your class in...

Arm your young scientists with knowledge about anatomy as they build their own model of the elbow joint. Help them get a firm grasp on how muscles and bones interact to allow movement as they try different positions for the muscles on...

What is meant by the phrase "form follows function?" Allow your budding biologists to discover first-hand through two activities. In the first, groups work together to discover whether a solid cylinder or an empty cylinder can support...

In the preceding lesson from the unit, beginning biologists discovered that microorganisms are everywhere, so the question follows, why are we not sick all of the time? Class members read and discuss an article in small groups about...

By using explicit textual evidence, individuals can strongly support their ideas and opinions. The presentation suggests in order to use explicit textual evidence, one must state their idea, cite evidence in the text that led...

Five activities encourage scholars to dream big and celebrate the similarities and differences of those around them. Learners take part in two active practices that showcase how their peers are the same and different. Worksheets...

Young elementary learners develop expression while reading. They listen as the teacher demonstrates expression when reading aloud. Individual learners read with a partner and practice using expression in their reading. When their partner...

In an introductory lesson, youngsters take a pre-assessment quiz, get a grasp of a gram of mass, and then estimate the mass of microorganisms that live within a human body. Using Glo Germ™, a material that allows you to simulate the...

What better way to learn about muscle than by dissecting one? Using cow muscle (beef), learners compare bundles of yarn to muscle fibers as they explore each. The supplemental reading about astronauts losing muscle mass in space and what...

Show your classes how different means can represent the same data. Individuals collect household size data and calculate the mean. Pupils learn how handling of the data influences the value of the mean. 

Caring, trustworthiness, and responsibility—these are only a few character traits in focus of a lesson based on stories from the Civil War era. Class members explore several influential lives while reading biographies that highlight...