Reinforce reading comprehension and story mapping skills with the help from a story, Gingerbread Baby by Jen Brett. Individuals discover new vocabulary, make predictions, retell main events, respond to reading using a graphic...

This 97-slide PowerPoint uses Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows, and Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember, to illustrate the elements of a story. Setting, plot, characterization...

Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

Matt Black's photo essay, "The Geography of Poverty" provides a shocking reminder of the poverty that exists in the United States. The resource not only focuses attention on poverty but also conditions that have given rise to situation...

While humans have always been on the move, the period between 1400 and 1800 saw vast migrations of people between the East and the West. These migrations—whether through slavery or a desire to colonize new lands—shaped the modern world....

Imagine going from being one of the richest, most important cities in the world to one of the poorest. Imagine the history captured in the architecture of such a city. Imagine these same now abandoned buildings being destroyed. How would...

Young historians learn more about the history of Angel Island Immigration Station through their analysis of primary source images. Guided by a list of inferential questions, scholars learn how to make and record observations on a...

Explore ocean habitats with a lesson that showcases the home of manatees and loggerhead turtles in Belize. Here, pupils compare and contrast the homes of ocean animals to those of humans, listen to an original short story about...

How did colonial settlement and the establishment of the United States affect Native Americans in the Chesapeake region? Your young historians will analyze contemporary and historical maps, read informational texts, and work in groups to...

What a great resource for introducing your youngsters to the world of ancient China and the earliest stages of its timeline. Included are creative ideas for organizing your room, as well as an engaging lesson plan, anticipatory...

Redesign your holiday celebrations with the aid of a lesson plan booklet packed with facts, images, maps, activities, and readings about the three-day feast that marked the English settlers' first successful harvest.

Here's an awesome unit that uses The Cay as the anchor text. The 16-page packet is loaded with teaching ideas, activities, and suggested adjustments.

Teach your class some fairly complex terms—factors of production, human resources, capital resources, natural resources, and intermediate goods—with a storybook (Messy Bessey's Holidays), plenty of visuals and handouts, and related...

Reinforce reading comprehension with a instructional activity about The Archer and the Sun, a Chinese folktale. Kids learn some background information about Chinese culture before reading the story, and answer literacy...

To gain insight into the many different types of habitats, individuals must first get to know their own. Here, scholars explore their school environment, draw a map, compare and contrast their surroundings to larger ones. They then...

Encourage scholars to retell their favorite short story or folktale, adding personal details to make it their own. After reading their book of choice several times, story tellers retell a tale verbally to their classmates. 

Poe goes high tech with a lesson that asks high schoolers to use the internet and various apps as they read and analyze "The Masque of the Red Death." In addition to responding to comprehension questions in Quizlet, they use Minecraft to...

Surprise! is the theme of a unit covering such topics as consonants, blending, short vowels sounds, high frequency words, and number words. The unit's lessons also include teachable moments covering story structure, illustrations,...

How far back is 40,000 years? Scholars research the first indigenous people in Aboriginal Australia. Using museum artifacts, maps, and background readings, they form conclusions on the life of the first Australians and their struggles to...

Challenge learners who have mastered the basic concepts in the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt thematic units on animal adventures with the activities and exercises suggested in this packet packed with ideas.

Agriculture, deforestation, and urbanization. How have human's changed the planet and how might we mitigate the effects of human activity on the planet? To answer these questions class members research the changes in human land use from...

Imagine sitting down with representatives of your school to write a new student handbook. What arguments would ensue? How would compromises be made to finish the project? Scholars research the Constitutional Convention using a directory...

What caused the collapse of the environment on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)? Who constructed the Moai? What was their purpose? Class members assume the role of investigators and use evidence drawn from field studies, ships' logs, and...

Young historians use primary source materials to investigate the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the USS Arizona. After reading background articles and studying maps and images of the attack, class members consider whether...