What was life like in colonial America? Follow this lesson and your pupils will find out what people in colonial times did for work and for fun. Ask learners to compare and contrast the two texts and explain what the reading helped them...

Add an outstanding resource to your repertoire. The first installment of a 36-part module looks at the relationship between addition and subtraction through an activity using tape diagrams. Pupils develop the identities w – x + x =...

Ready, set, write! Scholars work on the end-of-unit assessment by completing a writing prompt. They then look at the model performance task from instructional activity two to create a rubric for scoring the exercise. Using turn and talk,...

Shh! No talking during the discussion! Using the resource, scholars engage in a silent discussion called a Chalk Talk activity to analyze the purpose of a newspaper article. Additionally, they read a model newspaper article and try to...

Famous quotations by American Presidents are the focus of this Six Trait writing activity, which could be used in a U.S. History class or in language arts. After reading the picture book Theodore by Frank Keating, have your 7th graders...

Help your class transition into better writers with this lesson, which guides them through the process of adding transitions to increase sentence fluency and organization. The activity is designed for a classroom with a SMART board, but...

While this is considered optional within the unit it is designed for, pupils would benefit from the listed activities. Working on writing and revising a paragraph about librarians who travel to isolated areas, class members can add some...

Pick a corner. Scholars receive a quote about the Middle Ages and then participate in a four corners activity by choosing a corner pertaining to their quotes. They then work in groups of three to discuss the bold words in their quotes....

Is American growing fatter? Scholars begin with a mini lesson on reading charts and graphs using information about Human Body Fat in United States. They then transfer what they learned to charts and graphs using  harmful and...

Who is telling the story? Readers take a look at the text Eight Days to determine if the story is told in first or third person. They then discuss in groups and complete a shared writing activity to describe how the narrator's point of...

Does writing the name of a color in a different colored ink affect one's ability to read it? Scholars design an experiment to answer this question. They collect the data, analyze the statistics, and draw a conclusion based on...

Included here are step-by-step instructions for conducting a close reading of The Voice That Challenged a Nation by Russell Freedman. After an individual and class reading, class members read carefully through the text excerpt,...

Sarah Stewart’s The Gardener and Food from Farms by Nancy Dickmann display the importance of community farms. After reading these short picture books, class members draw connections between farms and the food we eat each day. As a...

Do you remember the days when a cup of coffee cost five cents? At A.W. Dennett restaurant in 1894, you could buy a five-cent cup of coffee and as well as a five-cent slice of pie to accompany it. The menu from that year is a primary...

"What happens next?" Using real-life scenarios, movies, images, and other prompts, pupils practice making predictions based on inferences from clues. A SMART board activity takes them from making predictions to writing a prediction...

Dr. Seuss and Walter Dean Myers team up to cover the topic of prejudice. Using The Sneeches (about the culture clash between star-bellied and bare-bellied Sneetches) and The Glory Fields (about a boy coming to America on a slave ship),...

The last instructional activity in this unit about human rights consists of a final assessment. To demonstrate the skills your class has acquired throughout this unit, they will work with a new article entitled "From Kosovo to the United...

Can you put that in writing? Scholars work with a partner to write a practice claim before writing their own claims. After writing their claims, learners share with class using a Concentric Circles activity.

Seventh graders view a PowerPoint presentation about short story elements. They complete a plot diagram using a previously read short story. Students brainstorm events in the story. They discuss the difference between major and less...

Tenth graders review the Energy, Matter, and Organization unit. They have one week to complete an essay. Students must submit a concept map or drawing. The activity is introduces by reading a short story line which presents a simple...

Using chapter 1 of Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed, middle schoolers write a personal memoir based on Spinelli's style and a Six Trait writing activity. The instructional activity suggests several ways to activate prior knowledge, including a...

What items would you need to survive if you were stranded in a remote place? Using chapter 10 of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, middle-schoolers work through a Six Trait writing activity to create a story about their own survival in a similar...

Using a variety of novels about survival, such as Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, pupils create author's studies using wikis. First, learners are placed in groups to study a particular novel. Then, they create a page...

Christopher Columbus: hero or villain? Prepare class members for the debate with activities that asks them to think critically about how history is reported.