Figurative language is the focus in the book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia. After reading Peggy Parish's book, class members dramatize idioms from the text, using dramatic strategies such as characterization, exaggeration, and...

Students examine figurative language in writing. Students demonstrate simile, metaphor, and personification in their own writing.

Using their keen eyes and ears, learners build story observation skills which they will use to create sensory detail in their art. They note all of the things they observed on a walk, categorize them by sense, and then use the same skill...

Young scholars read the play "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare. In groups, they identify the instances of similes, metaphors and personification. They use the Internet to compare and contrast the events in the play with historical...

A realistic simulation uses charts to show forces, position, velocity, and acceleration versus time based on how the simulation is set up. Once those concepts are mastered, scholars use free body diagrams to explain how each graph...

Students discover visual arts by creating sculptures in class. For this personal expression lesson, students research the Internet and examine different examples of modern sculptures and 3 dimensional art. Students utilize paper stock,...

Students create commercials using a digital camera. After brainstorming their ideas, they spend three days writing their commercials. Students practice and edit their commercials and then present them for review.

Students act out lines from Romeo and Juliet in a charade-like game.

Students study black history, examine portraits and portrait making and create their own portraits, and  investigate their natural environment. This humanities instructional activity provides a text that can be used to teach lessons...

Middle and high schoolers look at historical photos and written materials, and they develop questions which they use to interview an elder in their community. Learners are divided into groups and given sets of historical family photos...

Young historians explore US culture by investigating the US flag. They will use their textbooks, prior knowledge, and sources provided by the teacher to research the history of the American flag. They will design and create a trading...

Here is another in the interesting series of lessons that uses money as a learning tool. This one is especially clever! During the lesson, pupils pretend they are eating at "George's Place" diner. Small groups are given one bag of play...

Discover journalistic techniques by having learners prepare and write their own class newspaper. They discuss the five W's of investigative journalism and conduct interviews with school figures. They utilize video technology, podcast...

Ninth graders expand their reading vocabulary in order to increase comprehension. They play a game using vocabulary from a novel.

Students identify visual arts by identifying famous artwork on-line. In this sculpture instructional activity, students utilize the web to research popular sculptors and to see a video interview with Keith Haring. Students...

Students explore the concept of idioms as they learn about philanthropy. In this literature and service learning lesson, students read Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen and examine negative idioms. Students reflect on hurtful language...

This scripted instructional activity suggests using the journalist’s five W’s (who, what, when, where, why) to teach readers how to summarize a story and to how to distinguish between significant and supporting details. A template and...

Young scholars create their own telenovelas. In this telenovela lesson, students use the graphic organizer to work in groups and create a telenovela based on the mysterious letter.

Students define common English idioms which they find in books and book excerpts. They use an idiom dictionary and constuct a database of five idioms along with meanings and sentences. They beam this information to classmates.

Help young learners unlock the joy of silent reading by explicitly teaching comprehension methods such as cross-checking to figure out the meaning of unknown words. Practice and model expectations for behavior, and then set the class...

Students conduct team interviews outside the classroom, either within the school or beyond, as part of a fieldwork project. They use reasoning skills as they formulate questions, plan, predict, hypothesize, and speculate about the...

Students study the interview process by interviewing each other in pairs using a name game. They formulate and ask effective interview questions and practice interviewing skills. They invite a guest to their classroom or go outside the...

Twelfth graders hone descriptive writing skills by making a J. Peterman Catalogue. They bring to class a favorite piece of clothing or jewelry item and create their own description of it. They accompany each description with a hand-drawn...

Students work in groups to imagine, research and simulate a dinner party involving an author, a fictional character, and a significant historical figure as dinner guests. The activity uses Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and the time...