Every book has a few great characters, but James and the Giant Peach is the only one whose characters travel in a piece of fruit. The class creates T-charts for the main characters of the novel, while reading the book. They write actions...

Middle schoolers will sing the praises of this music program. The resource, designed as an overview for music instructors, is loaded with ideas, activities, and links. Not a sour note in the packet. 

Experiment with the center of gravity by stacking blocks in a way that appears to defy its force. This is a fascinating demonstration that you can use when teaching about gravity, forces, or balance. 

Learn the stories a formula holds. An interesting lesson takes a unique approach to teach how to use formulas. Beginning with a formula, learners predict what the variables stand for and then use the formula to make calculations and tell...

Begin a full lesson on climate change by demonstrating how carbon dioxide gas contributes to increased temperatures. Be aware that pressure inside the antacid-containing bottle in Activity 2 may cause the lid to fly off; keep viewers at...

Bringing together the young artists and the young organizers in your class, this lesson takes that popular topic of tessellations and gives it algebraic roots. After covering a few basic properties and definitions, learners attack the...

Turn the tables on your language arts pupils by letting them be the teachers! With a list of grammatical topics to choose from (subject, adverbs, direct objects, etc), eighth graders plan a presentation to "re-review" the concept with...

The dreidel song, or "I Have a Little Dreidel," is a fun traditional song for the season of Hanukkah. Teach your class how to play the dreidel game with an activity that includes the lyrics to the classic song.

Potty humor is always a big hit with the school-age crowd, and potty algebra takes this topic to a whole new level. Here the class develops a model that connects the dimensions (radii, paper thickness, and length of paper) of a...

It's cloudy with a good chance of learning! An inquiry-based lesson begins with an exploration of transparent, translucent, and opaque materials. Young scientists then connect their learning to the different cloud types as they take the...

Learners take on the roles of jurors in a civil case to evaluate evidence and determine a verdict in this engaging online interactive experience.

Learning to break apart numbers into smaller pairs is a critical step young mathematicians take as they develop their number sense. To practice this skill, children are provided with sets of three numbers and are asked to pick the two...

Prepare to teach Jan Brett stories by taking a look at this teacher resource, which includes text-based questions, writing assignments, discussion ideas, and vocabulary practice for 18 different stories.

Should people take vitamins or get the needed minerals through diet? Experts disagree based on many different factors. Scholars compare study findings and discuss the differences. They learn the importance of comparing results across...

Proving triangles are similar is often an exercise in applying one of the many theorems young geometers memorize, like the AA similarity criteria. But proving that the criteria themselves are valid from basic principles is a great...

Here is a fabulous lesson that should have your class very excited! They utilize the GRAPES formula in order to produce a commercial like ones we see on TV. Working in pairs, they must come up with a script, take video, provide music,...

Sometimes simple is just better. A set of activities teaches young mathematicians about using plausible estimation to solve problems. They break problems down to simpler problems, use rounding and estimation strategies, and consider...

Science, technology, and math come together in this one combination exercise. Analyzing the common soda can from both a purely mathematical perspective and a scientific angle allows for a surprisingly sophisticated comparison of...

So many times the characteristics of triangles are presented as a vocabulary-type of lesson, but in this activity they are key to unraveling a proof. A unique attack on proving that an inscribed angle that subtends a diameter must be a...

Geometry gets an engineering treatment in an exercise involving a belt wrapped around two wheels of different dimensions. Along with the wheels, this belt problem connects concepts of right triangles, tangent lines, arc length, and...

The scientific issue of carbon-14 dating and exponential decay gets a statistics-based treatment in this problem. The class starts with a basic investigation of carbon content, but then branches out to questions of accuracy and...

Study allusions with a research and presentation project. Pupils are assigned a specific allusion, the phoenix for example. They research the origins, compose a summary, explain the concept, and explore this allusion within various...

One way to get your class to evaluate and synthesize multiple multimedia sources is through a research project. The idea here is that class members will watch videos and listen to scientific debates in order to create a casebook about...

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech, "I Have a Dream," is one of the most famous in United States history, but why was it so effective? Ask your class to determine the answer to this question. While the resource includes a description of...