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...

Celebrate sean-nós, céilí, and the lilting music of the Emerald Isle with a set of language arts activities! Learners complete word puzzles, vocabulary exercises, and comprehension questions about traditional Irish music.

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...

Aladdin, Disney's Broadway musical comedy, is a magic carpet ride. Prepare your class for a field trip to the show with a study guide that is a treasure trove of activities, cultural connections, and background information.

That old fashioned rock and roll comes alive as theatre arts students prepare to attend a live performance of the musical School of Rock. Packed with both pre- and post-production materials, the guide has it all. Rock on!

Here's a collection of unit plans for middle school musicians. Topics include the mbira, opera, rhythm and culture, music in Africa, music in the movies, music theory and notation, blues and jazz, and the ocarina. Definitely worth a look.

Drag queens in thigh-high shiny red leather boots! Welcome to Kinky Boots, the Tony Award-winning musical about a young man trying to save his family-owned shoe-making business. With an engaging story line and songs by Cyndi Lauper, the...

Creative activities help bring literature alive. The first of a set of lessons designed to accompany selections from Theme 4: Problem Solvers uses activities such as skits, responses to music, and social studies projects. These...

Take note. Soul music. Gospel music. Country music. Summer comes alive with the sounds of music as program participants learn about various genres of music, create instruments, and write and perform songs about the facts and traditions...

General music students learn about the history of popular American music by creating and performing a one-act musical. After researching and creating an American Musical timeline, class members write a song with lyrics using Jam Studio,...

Bring history to life through literature. The first in a series of three challenge activities designed to accompany Theme 5: One Land, Many Trails does just that through unique projects connected to historical fiction and nonfiction...

Take poetry off the page and put it into terms of movement, physical space and, finally, music with this series of three lessons from the Smithsonian Institution. This resource introduces students to two poetic forms that originated as...

Looking for ideas for your Lunar New Year celebration? Check out an interdisciplinary unit of study that includes lessons in counting, calligraphy, culture, geography, literature, art, and music. Kung-hsi Fa-ts' ai! (May you...

Jazz and the City, Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement, Jazz and Gender, Jazz and Literature, Jazz and the Arts, Jazz and Film. Here's a packet of unit plans organized around themes that reflect American culture. Each unit examines how...

Looking to engage scholars in poetry with hands-on activities? What better way than making masks? Readers analyze literary devices in poetry, examine Native American masks, create their own masks, and then write poems to tell its story!

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...

Over the course of six lessons, scholars try their hand at composing and dancing after a thorough examination of the famous ballet, The Nutcracker, by Tchaikovsky. Participants watch and discuss the performance of two dances, create...

The stated goal of this unit is to use poetry to "improve the emotional health of young people." Budding poets read and then supply their own lines for poems that deal with alienation, loneliness, and rejection.

It's hard to imagine that life on Alcatraz could be dull. A series of intriguing lessons take readers through the novel Al Capone Does my Shirts. Pre-reading questions introduce the text and a range of suggestions, from comic strips to...

In his 2013 introduction to Fahrenheit 451, Neil Gaiman states, “Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” In this extraordinary unit plan, readers "explore the power of written language to educate and...

Celebrate the arrival of spring with this fun primary grade science unit. Engaging young scientists with a variety of hands-on activities and inquiry-based investigations, these lessons are a great way to teach children about...

Students explore vocabulary related to sports and hobbies. They consider their interests in sports and hobbies in relation to other students. They discuss music and describe a piece of music using simple adjectives.

The second and third movements of the Eroica, Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, provides listeners with an opportunity to connect to French Revolution and to Napoleon Bonaparte. As they listen to the music, individuals draw what their ears...

How are films made? As part of their study of film, middle schoolers investigate the pre-production, production, and post-production process and consider the role of the director, the screenwriter, production designer, cinematographer,...