Support your end-of-year instruction with planning kits from PBS. Five planning kits are provided: Special Lessons and Collections; Planning Sheets for Pre-K through 5 and 6-12; Summer Bonus Resources; and Relevant Professional Learning...

The End of the Line, Angela Cerrito's gripping novel about an adolescent murderer incarcerated in an unusual "school," is the subject of a comprehensive set of support materials. Chapter vocabulary and discussion questions are excerpted...

As you approach the end of the school year or New Years Eve, encourage reflection amongst your class members and gain a quick glimpse into the content and ideas that they remember the most.

The end-of-year period is a great time to pause and reflect on the experiences that made up the school year. Let the reflecting begin with a worksheet that prompts scholars to think back and respond with important lessons...

Complete a variety of activities related to the Maurice Sendak's book Chicken Soup With Rice. Readers identify the months of the year, identify words starting with the letter J, explore online illustrations created by Maurice Sendak, and...

Tap into the wisdom and knowledge of older members of the community with this New York Times plan. To warm up, learners write about and discuss advice they have been given. After reading "The Life Report," an op-ed column that asks older...

Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

Students sing songs, recite a poem, share what they can now do that they couldn't before and explain how they see their accomplishments. They read "Leo The Late Bloomer" and create graduation hats.

What sunk the Sultana? Scholars become investigators to uncover the facts behind the 1865 sinking just after the end of the Civil War. Through group work, videos, and primary documents, they research and analyze why 1,800 men died....

As part of their study of the history of the Channel Islands, class members craft an informational article to post on a bulletin board that features the Chumash ancestral tradition of tomol paddling.

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...

Interested in learning ASL? Lesson 12 in this ASL series gets you ready to identify the days of the week, ask question, and modify time signs. Note: If you are a special eduction teacher, use the vocabulary list to teach your non-verbal...

For this ninth lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit, close reading skills are used independently to find the gist of the story That Book Woman. Rereading for important details is the targeted skill to unlock a deeper...

Discover the lovely story of Raimundo Arruda Sobrinho with your class. Over the course of the lesson, pupils practice descriptive writing, write short narratives, collaborate in small groups, watch a powerful short film about Raimundo,...

Should the excavation of what is believed to be the cave of the Lone Woman of San Nicholas Island be allowed to continue? As a practice exercise designed to prepare pupils for a timed writing exam, individuals read two Los Angeles...

Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about...

Introduce your young learners to opera by dressing up as Mozart and recounting some of the fascinating details of his life and music. After exploring the Metropolitan Opera's site for kids, the class listens to a reading of Kyra...

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

Look back at the third chapter of The Cay with your class. Pupils will conduct a close reading, taking a second look at a chunk of text and responding to a series of text-dependent questions. Wrap up with an analytical writing prompt...

Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....

As the final lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit to establish routines and teach close reading skills, this plan is designed as an assessment piece. Using the story, The Librarian of Basra, learners independently...

Make a study of the First Amendment and its relationship to freedom. Pupils rewrite the amendment and discuss the central idea before focusing on a specific phrase. After discussing, class members write a journal entry about the included...

What is the difference between a Cold War and a Hot War? Scholars research the beginning of the Cold War. They analyze diary entries as well as excerpts from various events during the 45-year standoff. To finish, they prepare final...