National Endowment for the Humanities
Lesson 4 James Madison: Internal Improvements Balancing Act—Federal/State and Executive/Legislative
Who has the power? The founding fathers asked the same question when the United States was formed. Learners explore issues that arose during Madison’s presidency that raised constitutional questions. Through discovery, discussion, and...
Curated OER
The Voting Game
Upper graders play the voting game to help them understand voting patterns, political movements, and build a content specific vocabulary. Each student creats a chart to determine if his or her political view veers liberal or...
Curated OER
What is Physical Fitness?
First graders explore and discuss what physical fitness actually is, its benefits and how to obtain it through a variety of ways. They summarize the five parts of physical fitness: cardiovascular endurance,muscular strength, muscular...
Curated OER
Insurance Quotes
You're in high school and you just got the coolest car ever! But, now you need to start thinking about car insurance. Luckily, your teacher prepared you by engaging you in a life skills lesson like this one. The class actually calls...
Curated OER
Inferring Character Traits
Here is a lesson which is "flexible," and can operate as an individual or whole class activity. After reading a book of their choosing, with the use of a semantic map, learners identify character traits. They infer how their feelings...
Curated OER
Developing Thinking and Reasoning Skills in Primary Learners Using Detective Fiction
Students are introduced to the genre of detective fiction. Based on their reading level, they are given a different series of books to read. For each story, they are to make predictions and practice decoding messages. To end the...
Workforce Solutions
Evaluating Your Brand
After completing an evaluation worksheet that asks learners to rate their skills honestly, individuals create an action plan that includes specific steps to improve in these areas.
Workforce Solutions
The Negotiations of Interviewing
Sometimes the interview process includes negotiating for what you want. Here's an activity that guides job seekers to achieve The Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). Participants take on the role of job seekers and...
Workforce Solutions
Egg-streme Sports
Here's a new twist in the egg drop competition. Using only six inches of tape, four straws, and 2 pieces of newspaper, teams build a structure that keeps an egg from breaking when dropped. What's different about this project is that the...
Workforce Solutions
Reality Check
Talk about a reality check! High schoolers complete a lifestyle survey indicating their preference for housing, entertainment, etc., and then calculate the salary required to support those choices. Finally, they research the types of...
Workforce Solutions
Human Knot
Employability skills are difficult to measure but are essential in the workplace. Introduce high schoolers to employability skills with the Human Knot activity. Groups of six grab hands to form a human knot and untangle themselves. The...
Workforce Solutions
Workplace Personalities
Being able to get along with a variety of personalities in the workplace is a key job skill. To gain insight into the importance of this skill, class members take on roles of various personality types and work in groups to try to build a...
Workforce Solutions
Workplace Ethics
An activity that focuses on workplace ethical dilemmas asks groups how to respond to a series of scenarios. First, the class brainstorms a list of ethics that apply to employers, then a second one that applies to employees. Using their...
Workforce Solutions
Networking BINGO
A Networking BINGO game asks participants to find scholars who share a variety of the same interests and characteristics. Categories include everything from shoe size, to biggest fear, to intended college major.
NASA
Planning Time
Ever feel there's just not enough hours in the day? Young adults explore an important part of personal development using a group of activities. After comparing how they actually spend their time with how they would like to, scholars...
Smithsonian Institution
Lexington and Concord: Historical Interpretation
Learners view and analyze three different images related to the Battle of Lexington and Concord. They also answer a variety of questions in a graphic organizer to help keep the information straight.
Curated OER
How Does My River Flow?
Students create a river. In this water flow lesson, students predict how they think their river will flow and then construct a river box. Students create a landscape for the river to flow through, let the river flow and record...
Illustrative Mathematics
Christina's Candies
Help Christina figure out how many chocolate and lemon candies she has with a lesson on decomposing numbers. When presenting this context to the class, the teacher chooses the total number of candies and the number that are chocolate,...
Curated OER
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: "Teach Each Other" Discussion
Challenge your class to hold a discussion about the theme of death in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead without direct teacher guidance. After going over the discussion protocols and quotes from the text, learners move in a circle...
Illustrative Mathematics
Adding Multiples
Mathematicians practice communicating why the sum of two multiples of a number results in another multiple of that number. Encourage learners to construct a viable argument by applying the distributive property or by drawing a diagram....
Facing History and Ourselves
Laws and the National Community
When it comes to the law, is justice always served? Teach scholars about how law sometimes enables prejudice of entire groups of people with a unit on World War II that includes a warm-up activity, analysis of primary sources,...
Ohio Literacy Resource Center
Compare & Contrast Essay
Comparing two texts can build a greater understanding of the texts and themes of the works. Take some time to follow the steps here to guide your pupils through the process of composing compare-and-contrast essays.
Practical Money Skills
Living on Your Own
Independent living can be fun, but also overwhelming if you don't know how to budget your income and expenses. Go over the ways that kids can manage their money as they take a huge step into adulthood with a project-based lesson about...
Public Schools of North Carolina
Democratic Republic of Congo - Map Skills
Work on your map skills with a packet of activities about the river basins in the Democratic Republic on Congo. Learners study the maps provided before answering the geography questions and writing an acrostic poem about the region.