When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Scholars read Johnny Tremain to see how Johnny's terrible accident helped him become a part of history. Learners write two poems, analyze characters by matching descriptions, and create...

"Make new friends but keep the old" is a wise saying. However, True Son, a main character in The Light in the Forest, struggles doing just that. Once living among the white people, he was taken into an Indian tribe for several years....

Most think Elijah in Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis gets famous for being the first African American child born free from slavery. However, his true fame comes from his adventures to capture a thief. Readers study...

Julilly dreams of freedom after being taken from her mother by a slave trader. Will she ever be free again? A resource focuses on the first chapter of Barbara Smucker's book Underground to Canada, and includes 10 vocabulary...

Cross-comparison, the technique of focusing on two different texts with the same themes, motifs, events, etc., is employed in an exercise that asks groups to examine two different translations of “The Ruin,” a poem, written in Old...

Don't allow your pupils to become outliers! As learners examine normal distributions by calculating z-scores, they compare outcomes by analyzing the z-scores for each. 

From z-scores to probability. Learners put together the concepts from the previous lessons to determine the probability of a given range of outcomes. They make predictions and interpret them in the context of the problem.

class members first work through finding the equation, table of values, graph, and key features of a linear function expressed verbally. Individuals then work through several more problems given different representations.

How much can a cat eat? The five-question fraction assessment asks pupils to determine the fractional portion of a food box eaten by cats. Learners show their proficiency in adding and subtracting fractions using several scenarios...

The key is ... After a day of instruction on key features of graphs, groups create a poster and presentation on the key features of their given function graph. The resource provides an extension activity of "telephone" using...

Time for a shift in thinking! Learners examine translations of linear functions. They use function notation to describe the translation and make connections to the graph.

How do you convert from one measurement to another? Pupils use unit rates to convert measurements from one unit to another in the 21st segment in a 29-part series. They convert within the same system to solve length, capacity,...

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" provides the text for an activity that asks readers to select specific passages from the story, identify the aspect of American Romanticism the passage exemplifies, and then provide an...

If you have ever injured your shoulder, you know it takes a while to improve your arm's range of motion. For this real-world example, young mathematicians gain insight into the world of physical therapy while they analyze a case study...

Farming is full of mathematics, and it provides numerous real-world examples for young mathematicians to study. Here, we look at a cylinder-shaped storage silo that has one flat side. Given certain dimensions, students need to determine...

“What is the theme of this story?” Now there’s a question all pupils dread. Rather than encountering a sea of faces that look like they were painted by Edward Munch, face a classroom filled with smiles and confidence. Show your readers...

Draw back the curtain, add a spot of joy to your class, and let learners be lesson planed by a close reading exercise that models how to develop an interpretation based on evidence drawn from a text. Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue...

The first STEM lesson in a group of 10 explores composting. After discussing how to make a better tomorrow, classes are challenged to track garbage in their communities, visit a local waste management facility, and conduct a survey...

After looking at four examples of shapes divided into two exactly equal parts, junior geometers try their hand. One valuable thing about this activity is that the shapes are not only the standard circle, square, and triangle, but also...

Lost! (or misplaced) a modifier. Last seen dangling at the end of a sentence! Reward offered! To underscore the humor, class members are each given a sample sentence to illustrate (A woman passed by, leading a Springer Spaniel, in a...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

When told to describe a line, do your pupils list its color, length, and which side is high or low? Use a worksheet that engages scholars to properly label line graphs. It then requests two applied reasoning answers.

The class gets their mean and median all in a row with an assessment task that uses a population of ducklings to work with data displays and measures of central tendency. Pupils create a frequency chart and calculate the mean and median....

Sew up your unit on operations with decimals using this assessment task. Young mathematicians use given rules to determine the amount of fabric they need to sew a pair of pants. They must also fill in a partially complete bill for...