Students discuss and write about different feelings they or someone else may have. In this feelings lesson plan, students discuss different ways they express their feelings. Then they get a picture with someone who is demonstrating a...

Transition words in writing are the focus of the language arts lesson presented here. In it, learners cut out the word-sort cards (embedded in the plan), and put them into four categories: time, examples, space, and summary. They find a...

What steps did Henry "Box" Brown take while planning his own escape from slavery? Learners work in groups to analyze segments of Brown's narrative and identify the sequence of the most important events of his story.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores were both born in 1858, and both came to the Dakota territory in 1883, but they influenced the developing country of America in different ways. Elementary and middle schoolers apply written and...

Learners access oral histories that contain slave narratives from the Library of Congress. They describe the lives of former slaves, sample varied individual experiences and make generalizations about their research in journal entries.

Examine the characteristics of an effective persuasive paper. In a group, eighth graders discuss the analogy of a debate being like a persuasive paper. After brainstorming topics, they write an argument and then debate it. Secretly, the...

Students study what occurs in the division process, rather than just following prescribed steps. They expand number sense to include integers and perform operations with whole numbers, simple fractions, and decimals. They write a word...

Take a walk and observe living and non-living things on the way. Young scientists practice making valuable observations and draw the details.  You could require that your students complete a T chart of living and non-living things...

What is all the fuss about genetically modified foods? PBS provides this resource designed to supplement the documentary Food, Inc. to help learners investigate the benefits and controversies of genetically modified foods...

Let me break it down for you! Introduce your class to a way of breaking up a complicated task into its component pieces. Individuals draw a complex figure using JavaScript and then break it down to help determine the...

Young scholars write rhyming poems using rebus. With pictures instead of words, authors create original work about things they love. 

Learners sort medications by likeness and use. They compare and contrast using a Venn Diagram, and find the differences and commonalities of over the counter and Rx medications.

Students examine journalism and its different styles.  For this effective communication instructional activity students create an editorial message and articulate an article.

Ninth graders analyze Chekhov's "The Bet". They repsond to a journal quesiton and use examples from the novel. In groups, they take on different roles analyzing the novel and then write one of my prompts to complete the lesson.

Students examine the significance of Lake Champlain in the Revolutionary War. In this American Revolution instructional activity, students discuss how Lake Champlain was integral to the war, create war time lines, and identify the 13...

Third graders investigate idioms by listening to Peggy Parish's, Amelia Bedelia. They make a list of the idioms in the book, add to the list, and then chose one to illustrate. They make a class book using the illustrate idioms.

Third graders study Jacob Have I Loved.

Students view a video about the rise of the Medici family of Renaissance Italy. They complete a chart comparing Medieval Europe to Renaissance Italy.

Students watch a video about the internal power struggles of the Medici family of Renaissance Italy. They compare the Medici family to the Mafia and produce a written response to the film.

Third graders measure items around the classroom using meter sticks. In this measurement lesson plan, 3rd graders are taught how to measure the length of an item with a meter stick. Inches, centimeters, millimeters, decimeters, and...

Readers of Voltaire’s satire create a word square for vocabulary drawn from Candide. The first box contains the word, the second a picture or illustration of the word. The definition is written in the third box, and learners write a...

Racist, independent, conflicted? Readers of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn brainstorm words that describe the traits of characters in Twain’s novel and then rate these qualities in several of their favorite characters. Individuals...

Eleventh graders gain understanding of how words in the English language are formed. They assess their own work for sentence clarity and variety of expression. They increase their comprehension and recall.

Intelligent? Arrogant? Obnoxious? After completing Chapter 18 of Freak the Mighty, individuals fill out a semantic feature chart for characters in Rodman Philbrick's novel. Group members then use their charts to discuss relationships...