From constructing a colorful paper chain for learners to keep track of their Lenten goals to baskets of plastic eggs filled with suggestions for observing Holy Week, here you'll find a variety of activities and ideas for...

Show your class that there is more than one way to communicate an idea. Pupils note down their ideas and then brainstorm a few things they want to include in their pictures. Then, in the box provided, they sketch and describe their...

If you are reading works by Walter Dean Myers in your class, this resource might be worth a look. Included here are activities and discussion questions for Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary, Somewhere in the Darkness, Scorpions, Fallen...

Develop young mathematicians' ability to compare fractions with investigation into the number 1/2. After brainstorming a list of fractions equivalent to 1/2, children identify a pattern in the numerators and...

Get your class thinking with a graphic organizer made for brainstorming. Pupils note down a topic in the middle and then branch out to write down more ideas in each of the three circles that form the cluster around the topic.

Getting ideas down on paper is often the first step when starting a project or new unit of study. Try out this straightforward brainstorming map with your class. Learners write in a topic and use the six bubbles that branch out of the...

Make the thought process visible with a handy concept map organizer. As learners develop their main ideas in research, writing, or creative development, they can add details and like ideas to the worksheet as needed.

Using primary and secondary sources—including classics such as the Communist Manifesto—class members consider the effects of these ideas on the course of history. Another essay prompt explores geography and history, while multiple-choice...

Plan on using Gone with the Wind as a reading selection? Here's a packet of prompts for activities and assessments.

If readers don't understand key portions of a text, it may seem more like a foe than a friend. The second resource in a series of three ESL lessons designed to accompany the texts in Nature: Friend or Foe makes the texts easier to...

Prepare for a mid-unit assessment based on Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club with a brainstorming and discussion lesson plan. Focused on two chapters from the novel ("Rules of the Game" and "Two Kinds"), the lesson plan guides tenth graders...

What happens when a tenuous grasp on sanity begins to slip? Compare Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and Emily Dickinson's "I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain" with a lesson plan focused on developing a common central idea. High...

How does an author develop and contrast character points of view in a work of literature? Using a graphic organizer, readers continue gathering evidence about character point of view from Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water. Next,...

When you think of one topic, related ideas and details invariably follow. That's concept mapping! Jot down ideas with a straightforward graphic organizer that works both electronically and as a printed resource.

Small groups brainstorm their roles in the community. Then, individually, complete a community roles web worksheet. Peers share their completed product and extend the conversation to include the feelings and character traits that go...

A lesson plan encourages scholars to be star community members. Pupils take part in a class discussion that challenges them to brainstorm at least two ways to show responsibility within one's community. Small groups play a game in which...

Combine a study of biography writing with some tips for spicing up writing. After reading two passages, one much more descriptive than the other, pupils examine what makes one more interesting. They then brainstorm some ideas for writing...

A human rights defender is someone who promotes and protects human rights for all. Scholars explore the subject with the fourth and final lesson from the Introduction to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights series. Pupils share...

Class members continue their analysis of Letters to a Young Poet, paying particular attention to how Rilke uses metaphor to develop his ideas about the source of inspiration.

What do you do when faced with a bully? Scholars answer this question when presented with a scenario regarding two learners and their spelling test grades. They take part in a grand conversation that leads to problem solving and...

Celebrate the beauty of trees with a packet full of activities designed to help kindergarteners get to know about their leafy nature friends. Covering a variety of subjects, scholars go on a nature hike, read Shel Silverstein's The...

It's time to take action! Learners strategize their action campaigns by using the resource and past brainstorming activities from the series that help them pinpoint problems in their communities. They use included templates to get the...

Scholars take part in a grand conversation about the basic needs of living things. Working collaboratively, pupils brainstorm and identify similarities to come to the conclusion that the environment meets the needs of all living...

Follow up a reading of The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me by Roald Dahl with this collaborative lesson on teamwork. Starting with a fun team game, learners go on to investigate examples of teamwork in the story before...