Young scientists investigate the scientific concepts and principles that help make common toys such as hula hoops, yo-yos, slinkies, and silly putty work. As a class, they read "Backyard Rocket Science, Served Wet" to get a look behind...

Explore narrative writing by participating in a role-playing activity. In this perspective lesson, learners define first and third person in writing and discuss how it changes the mood of the reader. The first activity has pupils write...

Students explain how individual elements (e.g., plot, theme, character, conflict, etc.) comprise the structure of a play. They write an original one-act play with developed characters, specific setting, conflict, and resolution.

Shadow puppetry has an ancient past, it is also a great way to build oral expression and reading fluency. Young thespians research folk tales, compare and contrast reality and fantasy, then create and perform a shadow puppet play based...

Start a writing lesson by examining a news video that explains writing clearly, concisely, and correctly. Learners consider the importance of writing news properly to avoid breaking the law, then write their own weekend news stories.

Learners view a slide show featuring famous athletes and educational institutions that have played a part in the history of basketball. They participate in a game in which a basketball is tossed from person to person as facts and...

Help your writers get started with these hooks! Twenty-five opening lines from the "Lives" column in the New York Times Magazine act as prompts for creative writing. Have your learners choose one prompt and write an original essay....

Use your tablets to participate in a culture-sharing project with a class in a foreign country. Your class can communicate and share ideas with a class in another country, swapping information regarding language and culture. Together you...

Looking for a good social media lesson for your class? Then, this lesson is for you! They study various written reviews, then must choose an item to review of their choice. They can choose from: a book, restaurant, CD/musical...

Few aspects of life make better fodder for a comedic play than politics. A study guide introduces George Bernard's Shaw comedy Arms and the Man. Along with summaries of each scene and brief biographies of the main characters, two lesson...

Students explore the concept of retelling a story.  In this retelling lesson plan, students use Play-Doh to create models of the objects in Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Students use these models to to retell the...

Students set up a pretend "apple stand." In this dramatic play lesson, students create an apple stand scene. Students pretend to pick and pay for apples.

Learners write an original song using music composition software such as Music Time. By doing this, students identify another use for the computer besides word processing and games.

Got a rainy day and need a few fabulous activities to foster creative thinking skills? The class works to understand the three types of human power; direct, indirect, and stored. They do this by first creating a parade float like the...

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.

Here is an authentic assessment task for Shakespeare's Macbeth. Young literature scholars prepare, perform, and record a news broadcast about the major events in the play. For example, groups may choose to report on the death of Lady...

Take writing prompts to another level in this activity, which allows pupils to create scenes of dialogue based on the 1903 silent film, The Great Train Robbery. Useful for a language arts/history cross-curricular activity, the lesson...

Learners read a story and retell it through role playing. They will read Big Pumpkin, identify the main ideas and important characters, retell the story through dramatic play, and identify their favorite character.

"What a beautiful noise comin' up from the street; got a beautiful sound, it's got a beautiful beat..." Use Neil Diamond's "Beautiful Noise" to guide your class through a Six Trait writing activity, in which they write an original poem...

The first of a three-part series on bullying, this plan has class members present skits about bullying, write and sign an anti-bullying pledge, and complete a service project. For the skit, learners use information from previous lessons...

Are you looking for a way to bring writing into your history lesson - or history into your writing lesson? This cross-curricular activity is helpful and fun, no matter what class you're teaching! Using "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" by the...

Students write a topic sentence to a paragraph and explain that it introduces the main idea. After a whole-class demonstration, students write a complete paragraph with their topic sentence and supporting sentences. There are some...

Can your pupils change the world? Explore this question with Ben Harper's song "With My Own Two Hands" and John Mayer's "Waiting for the World to Change." After listening to the songs, they discuss the tools at their disposal for...

Have your class conduct research to learn all they can about simple machines. They use the web, take notes from a video, write a script, then make a film describing various simple machines found in real life. These videos are then...