An extensive portfolio project encourages your kids to reflect on their personalities with multiple writing assignments. From activities on extended metaphors to writing about an important day in their lives, kids explore the way they...

More space, in this case, means more status. Kids consider the status assigned to Tlingits via house partition. They discuss a carved piece that shows household space partitioned by status. They then write their own clan stories and draw...

Wrap up a documentary creation project with the final lesson in this series. Class members reflect on their learning and compose responses to four questions relating to what they learned, whey they would do differently, and how the group...

How are raptors and airplanes alike? Combine science and language arts in this fun and interactive project. Young scientists research the animal in order to design their own aircraft, and compete in a contest for farthest, fastest, and...

Students, after reading Fahrenheit 451, brainstorm inventions that could have been in the novel. They present their invention to the class and writing an expository essay about their creation.

Bring art and society together with this highly creative and interesting lesson. Learners research various uses of masks in ceremonies. They then create a ceremony of their own and a mask to go along with it. They film themselves...

Students determine what grammar is and how they have learned it. In this creative writing lesson plan, students read "Style' Gets New Elements," and respond to the discussion questions. Students then present grammatical rules to one...

Film poems? To concluded a poetry unit, writers select one of their own poems and create a film that brings to life the sounds and images of their work. Included with the detailed unit plan are daily lessons, student examples, a list of...

Who wouldn't love to get a letter from a blue bird? Elementary art enthusiasts analyze the social and historical context of Ason Yellowhair's Navajo piece, Bird and Cornstalk Rug. They examine the construction and images on the rug...

Think about a moment, frozen in time. Now take a critical look at the painting, Better, Homes, Better Gardens. This painting works to provide learners the opportunity to analyze art, critique artist's choices, and write a story inspired...

The blanket being analyzed here seems simple and plain, but it reflects the culture and geography of the people who made it. Learners critically examine the influence geography and culture had on the creation of the blanket and on...

C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength provides the model for using dreams in narrative writing. After a discussion of the purpose of dreams in Lewis’s tale, class members craft a story in which their dreams play an essential role.

Students create poems and sound compositions using instruments, sounds, and pictograph notation. After listening Debussy's Children's corner suite, they brainstorm a list of snow vocabulary words. Students write poems and in groups...

Lights, shadows, action, and inquiry await your artistic scientists. They explore the way light travels, absorbs, reflects, and transmits through shadow play. They create folktale-inspired shadow puppets, explore the science of light,...

The fifth installment in a writing unit that culminates with a Hyperstudio illustrated group story project, this plan is ripe with ideas for ways to design group writing projects for elementary writers. Use the whole unit as a base from...

Middle schoolers determine how they are included in "Circles of Strength." In this character activity, students reflect on how they are part of "Circles of Strength" in the "Circle of Life." They make an individual circle that includes...

A game, research, and cross-cultural comparisons are in the works as you open an artistic lesson. Upper graders get analytical as they make observations that will help them create a link between abstract and creative thinking. They...

Readers reflect on enjoyable stories they know, brainstorm criteria that make a story "good," analyze a New York Times article about innovative children's performances, re-envision classics on their own, and peer edit drafts. Use this as...

A reading of a New York Times review of the movie Beloved launches research into how the Civil War affected the lives of people living during this period. Creative thinkers select a person from an included list of historical figures and...

A lesson turns young historians into playwrights to understand and speak out against social injustice. Pupils work individually or in groups to write and perform monologues that deliver personal messages on social justice. Writers then...

Encourage pupils to design an election plan for the entire school. They participate in a Board of Elections, create polling rules, discuss election controversies, write questions about the issues, run the election through an online...

High schoolers create sketchbooks, explore the uses of journals, write (across the curriculum) from others' points of view, and compare forms of communication from the 1800s to today. A nice blend of individual, whole class,...

Any lesson that includes time at the computer lab is a favorite for the kids! In this plan, the class heads to the lab to research Anne Frank and her life. Using both Internet and print resources (like the book), pupils compile...

Before beginning F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, create a historical context of the Roaring 20s with this lesson. Set up a gallery walk with the provided PowerPoint, which features 10 topics related to the 1920s. Then begin...