While music lyrics are often used to teach literary elements, the richness of this resource comes from the wealth of exercises, activities, and support materials provided in the packet.  Although designed for gifted learners, the...

The power of signs and signals. Viewers use various body parts to illustrate how gestures convey meaning and how the meaning of these gestures may differ among racial and cultural groups, between men and women, or have meaning to...

When faced with a challenge, how do your pupils respond? Starting with character analyses, learners participate in a lesson about appearances and perseverance. They watch a short film, talk about common English expressions, and write a...

Help your class create collective poetry following a simple, engaging model from Teaching Tolerance (tolerance.org). Each young poet writes five things on an index card: sayings from others, favorite sound, favorite place, favorite...

Enhance English language skills using the fan-favorite song, "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles. Scholars predict what the song is about then listen and mark specific words they hear. Playing the song again, participants unscramble...

Foreign language learners decipher the meanings of classified ads in the target language. They investigate a large collage created by the teacher of foreign language advertisements and discuss the content with classmates.  Then...

Integrate history, math, and art into a study of The Grapes of Wrath with a series of activities that ask learners to investigate the social, political, economic, and environmental factors at play during the 1930s. Designed to be used...

Even the kindest friends can become selfish and tyrannical in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen." Class members complete story-themed exercises in language arts, social studies, and even physical science.

Young scholars discover enunciation and alliteration by reading tongue twisters in class.  In this language arts lesson, students listen and repeat some of the classic childhood tongue twisters along with their teacher.  Young...

Students participate in a video English class. In this video instructional activity, students read a play then video activities they do to better understand the play. Students video themselves answering questions about the play then...

Negative effects of bullying come to light through listening to the book Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. Class members identify philanthropic acts portrayed in the story and make illustrations to connect them to their own...

Grow an understanding of short story with a well-sequenced plan built around an Academy Award-winning short film. Class members explore the elements of an effective short story, and practice writing their own. They also watch the short...

Are you just about to teach persuasion in your class? If so, you should consider this short unit. In small groups, learners create a product, develop a magazine ad for the product, and pitch this product to the class using a visual...

Figurative language is the focus in the book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia. After reading Peggy Parish's book, class members dramatize idioms from the text, using dramatic strategies such as characterization, exaggeration, and...

Students gain an introduction to Buddhist teachings about moral behavior by exploring a depiction of the Buddha and by writing a speech inspired by their interpretation of the Noble Eightfold Path.

Elementary schoolers view and study ten pictures of the location of a ball adjacent to a box. They decide where the ball is and match it to its appropriate preposition on the right. A good language arts lesson!

Through the use of stories, artwork, and the KidPix program, youngsters explore the color word red, and engage in activities around the word. Teaching kindergartners about the color words can be so much fun. This could be adapted for any...

Enhance your foreign language students' skills to describe a house. After reading a description of rooms in a house in their target language, they work to answer corresponding questions correctly. Additionally, they view a PowerPoint...

This lesson is intended for a music class but would be a great way to teach compare and contrast to any class. Kindergarteners dance the Hokey Pokey to four different styles of music and examine two paintings of Humpty Dumpty, then...

Save the Lofty Trees, by Leslie Mills, provides the text for a study of the roles of animals and humans in the forest. Richly detailed, the plan offers two approaches to the play: as a scenario for children to imagine what actions would...

What a fun idea! The class discusses, and then writes free-verse poems using sensory detail. They get into small collaborative writing teams to compose their poems. Next, they pantomime the actions from the poem while their teammates...

Are you in need of a new way to teach learners sequence of events and how to interpret a character's external motivations? Why not engage them in dramatic play? The class will use tableaux to convey the sequence of events in a familiar...

Combine art and literature to teach greater themes and symbolic meaning. Using the plan outlined in this resource, expose your class to the story "Zebra" by Chaim Potok, conduct discussions about social issues and nicknames, and ask...

Each color holds its own feeling and these feelings are used to describe the four seasons. Youngsters create a color palate based on the four seasons, assigning various colors to each season. They each create four clay tiles, painting...