Begin by showing a six-minute video, Changing Planet: Rising Sea Level as an anticipatory set. Pupils draw a topographic map of a potato continent. Finally, they will visit NOAA's sea levels online map and NASA's carbon dioxide...

Left-to-right, left-to-right, that's the way we read and write! Watch this short video clip and teach your young learners this chant before they start writing! 

What makes a poem difficult? Explore that topic and more with your class as you work through the lesson detailed here. Using materials from Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation contest, individuals or small groups examine poems and...

Get learners excited about reading with literature circles! Small groups discuss the day's reading in various roles, including Discussion Director, Summarizer, Word Wizard, Literary Luminary, Travel Tracer, Connector, and Fact Finder,...

Take your classes back in time. Learners read real historical texts from both Darwin and Wallace as well as an announcement of their findings. Using guiding questions, they make inferences and draw conclusions from the information in the...

Guide your class through reading various versions of The Three Little Pigs. Talk about the traditional story line and then discuss a different point of view: Maybe the wolf was just an innocent bystander! This lesson plan, which has...

Capitalism, socialism, communism ... these may seem like a whole bunch of isms to your scholars. High schoolers won't  confuse them after completing an informative resource. Your class masters how to use primary sources to...

Can you imagine living in a totalitarian country? Learners will read several primary source memoirs to gain a deeper understanding of what life is like under a controlled government. They'll discuss each piece in pairs, research...

Airline mechanics must be precise, or the consequences could be deadly. Their target ranges alter with changes in temperature and pressure. When preparing an airplane for flight, you must read a maintenance graph. The second lesson of...

Students examine the use of topographic maps as two dimensional representations that show elevations and slopes with contour lines. They read maps of the Salt Lake City, Utah area and complete the associated worksheets that show map...

Learners of all ages read and discuss books about Asian America. In this Asian-America lesson plan, different books for every age group are listed and various teaching strategies are suggested. Great tips cover virtually every grade level!

Junior geologists work through three mini-lessons that familiarize them with the formation and location of fossil fuels. Part one involves reading about petroleum and where it comes from via a thorough set of handouts. A lab activity...

Practice making predictions by looking at the cover of a book. You can use The Hungry Thing, as suggested here, or any other book you may be reading in class. Use the predictions to talk about good reading strategies. A chart is...

Help young readers learn to read and interpret complex text independently. Teach young children to ask interpretive questions and use the text itself to answer them. Use art, word play and drama to provide a deeper understanding of...

Here is a nice set of activities and discussion questions to accompany your class reading of No Pretty Pictures, a memoir of a young girl's experiences and struggle for survival during the Holocaust.

Consider the preponderance of evidence when making a verdict. The third of five lessons in Unit 1: The Big Climate Change Experiment focuses on the evidence for climate change. Learners study graphs, diagrams, and pictures regarding...

Students complete another Read about Science with a focus on toys. Individually, they read a book of their choice about toys and define new vocabulary. To end the science lesson, they complete a KWL chart and share what they...

Students identify the characteristics of topographical maps. Using examples, they practice reading them and describing the information they gather from them. They also discover how to use the website from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Should land be redistributed to former slaves after the Civil War? This essential question guides a lesson on the Reconstruction Era, as learners analyze primary sources (linked), recording responses on a worksheet (linked). To model the...

Stars seem to be a far away mystery... but it turns out we know much more about stars than one would think! An engaging lesson shows learners how to read a light spectrum to determine the temperature and chemical makeup of a star....

Learners explore U.S. history by participating in a government activity. In this Constitution lesson, students identify the role government plays in our society and the differences the British colonies had in the early 18th century....

Examine the contributions of African-Americans in the worlds of art and literature. Over the course of a few days, young scholars will read and analyze a poem, a short story, and a piece of art. They complete a range of...

Investigate articles from the daily news and share opinions with classmates. Using current events, learners view a news program without sound and predict what news is being discussed by analyzing the visuals. Then they read news articles...

As young consumers of media, it is important for high schoolers to explore concepts of bias and prejudice, and how they may be present in media. After discussing ideological messages that media can contain, individuals complete a warm-up...