Musicals have been adapted from stage plays, novels, and movies. With The Lion King, Disney transforms its animated film into show-stopping, live-action musical theatre. The guide Disney provides to accompany a study...

Whether you are viewing a landscape painting of a farm, examining a still-life portrait of a bowl of fruit, or reading a descriptive poem about cultivating food, you can't deny that agriculture plays a major role in visual and language...

A language arts instructional activity helps young writers identify elements that make up historical fiction. First, it guides them through elements of fictional pieces with vocabulary cards. Then, pupils work collaboratively to...

The eighth lesson plan in this series continues the focus on vocabulary and increasing young readers' awareness of academic language. Pairs of learners participate in a short vocabulary review activity called Interactive Words in which...

Middle schoolers practice evaluating art by creating a research project and presentation. They use the Internet and library to discover a piece of art or artist whom they feel has an impact on the world of art. Next, they create a...

Build an interest and appreciation for architecture in your young learners with this fun 10-lesson art unit. Engaging children in using their five senses, the class first observes the environment around them, paying...

Newspapers aren't only for reading—they're for learning skills, too! A journalism unit provides three lessons each for primary, intermediate, and secondary grades. Lessons include objectives, materials, vocabulary, and procedure, and...

Practice listening skills while studying oral story tellers from different parts of Louisiana. Consider the regional dialects and insider language of folk groups with your class. Identify language as part of folk life and recognize that...

Bring A Charlie Brown Christmas to social studies, language arts, math, science, and art class! Learners ponder the meaning of Christmas trees, write about Christmas during the original release of the television special,...

At the beginning of this Halloween instructional activity, learners generate a list of spooky characters and words that they will use when creating their original stories. Teams of 3-4 members create the stories together. The...

After examining a piece of art, scholars discuss what they see, paying close attention to details and space. A read-aloud introduces the topic of family traditions. Pupils interview their family members about a tradition in preparation...

Useful for literary analysis, citing textual evidence, or summary skills, this activity about the Kumeyaay Indians would be a good addition to your language arts class. Middle schoolers read novels and summarize the literature in their...

Fourth graders who are studying life in colonial America engage in an instructional activity that has them create a "Help Wanted" ad that would have been written by a master craftsperson from back in the day. They utilize a graphic...

The Great Fire by Jim Murphy provides the text for a study of the Chicago fire of 1871. The plan is designed as a close reading activity so that all learners have the same background information require for writing. Richly detailed, the...

Young historians use their planning graphic organizer to prepare a personal narrative draft on expert trades. Since the instructional activity is considered the mid-unit assessment, learners respond to a writing prompt related to the...

Following the formative assessment of this unit, young scholars present the information they gathered on their specific colonial trade to the rest of the class. Working in groups, learners create posters describing the particular job...

Get your class thinking about advertising with this lesson plan. Over the course of 15 days, your class will discuss advertising techniques, study the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos, and analyze the persuasive techniques of...

Set up your class to read Esperanza Rising, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, through a class read-aloud and exploration of the setting. The detailed instructional activity outlines each step. First, class members read over the first few pages and...

Chinese and Japanese calligraphy is beautiful and significant in both culture and tradition. Engage your class in this expressive fine art form through a lesson on using, holding, and creating brush strokes common to Japanese writing...

This resource is part of a three-activity unit that introduces your class to the concept of popular culture and the role that it plays in their lives. Here, learners examine the importance of the music industry and music videos in pop...

A great idea for showing language arts pupils the universality of themes, even in the real world! Have class members choose an idea-noun (peace, justice, war, love, etc.) at the beginning of the year or semester. They complete weekly...

Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about...

Demonstrate how to engage in a polite and professional conversation with this banking and interfacing lesson. Focusing on explanatory and informaitonal texts, middle schoolers write sentences using banking and finance terminologies....

Students read excerpts from Peter Hessler's River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze and discuss his difficulties in learning the language, cultural clashes and how cultural perceptions shape our understanding of the world.