Pupils prepare to write argumentative essays based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. They begin weighing evidence and crafting claims for their writing about control.

Symmetry, line, shape, art, and math are all connected through a fun hands-on craft. Included are instructions to a classic activity, where learners create butterflies to show symmetry in nature and then discuss symmetry in math. It is...

Kids cast their own plaster tools to stamp image impressions and textures for tiles, pictures frames, and other works of art. Young artists can even create their own watermark to label their stuff.

Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading...

As an assessment of their skill in crafting a compare and contrast essay, class members read and compare the portrayals of nature in excerpts from naturalist John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra and from poet Emily Dickinson's...

Is your head beating as if it would break into twenty pieces looking for activities to accompany a reading of the woeful tale of Juliet and her Romeo? Here's a weighty tool kit that won't hurt your back. The packet is divided into 20...

Here's a colorful activity that can be modified for any age group. Kids create printing blocks and craft t-shirts and/or canvas sacks using the blocks and fabric paint. 

"That man is not truly one, but truly two." The Strange Case of  Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde offers readers a change to craft a poem combining words and phrases from Robert Lewis Stevenson's novella to create a poem...

What is "virtual freedom"? How about "enslaved entrepreneurship"? Class members will learn about these terms and much more as they read the poems and examine the life of George Moses Horton.

"Now is the summer of our happiness/Made winter by this sudden, fierce attack!" Luke Skywalker meets Hamlet in a 10-lesson unit based on Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope. Using Star Wars® as source...

Scholars use the model essay from the previous instructional activity to create their own argumentative essays. Readers make a claim about Atticus defending Tom in To Kill A Mockingbird. They then use graphic organizers to develop and...

What's the difference between story reading and story telling? Participants in a summer enrichment program learn all about the difference as they listen to famous speeches, engage in dramatic readings, and craft their own short stories...

Leonardo da Vinci is the focus of a hands-on activity that encourages scholars to become inventors. Pupils brainstorm and sketch their idea, compose a detailed depiction using a mirror writing technique, and antique the paper for a...

'Tis not easy to understand the language of the Bard! But, hark! Fret not! With the assistance of this joyous lesson, young players learn how to translate Shakespeare's English into modern language. Groups examine passages from Julius...

"There comes an end to all things" and ending a study of horror fiction with a multimedia project is "like starting a stone. . . away the stone goes, starting others. . ." In this case, groups start with a question generated by Dr....

Connect science, art, and language arts with a nature-themed bookmaking project. Kids craft book covers, cut paper for pages, and learn how to bind their creations.

Help young scholars see the important role camouflage plays in the survival of animals with a fun science lesson. Starting with an outdoor activity, children take on the role of hungry birds as they search for worms represented by...

"And the award goes to. . . " High schoolers investigate bias in the movie industry by reading articles, watching a short video, and examining data about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) membership, nominees, and...

As a final assignment in a unit study of Edward Bloor's Tangerine, individuals assume the voice of Paul Fisher and craft the witness report Paul mentions in the final pages of the novel. A great way to assess the...

Art can enhance the understanding of history. That's the big idea in a lesson that has young scholars read Randall Jarrell's poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" and an excerpt from John Hersey's Hiroshima, which provide a...

Readers draw connections between Bud, Not Buddy and Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford University commencement address and cite evidence from the two texts to support their analysis.

Young readers take a look at the conditional and subjunctive moods authors use. The Conditional and Subjunctive Mood handout defines the types of moods and gives them examples and practice. They then work with partners to identify...

Find your voice. Readers look at a passage from A Mighty Long Way and discuss what it means for Carlotta to find her voice. After discussing figurative language and idioms, learners listen to the song "This Little Light of Mine" and...

Charles Schulz' Charlie Brown and Friends, a collection of Peanuts comic strips, provides young readers with an opportunity to engage in full-class discussions, work in groups to examine how Schulz develops his characters, and...