Engaging in topical discussions can be a great way to teach kids how to build strong arguments and support their opinions with concrete evidence. High schoolers choose a controversial topic, build an argument for or against that topic,...

Match animals to their environments with a cute lab activity. Kids draw a line between each animal, such as a fish, a rabbit, and an ant, to the place where it lives. For hands-on practice, a science investigation instructs learners to...

Have fun with shape poems! First and second graders write calligrams that add to the meaning of their poems. Great for your poetry unit or if you want to combine poetry and art lessons. 

Opposites attract with a fun science experiment on magnets. With a short paragraph on background knowledge, the lab sheet prompts third and fourth graders to choose which pairs of magnets will attract, and which pairs will repel. A...

Did you ever play capture the flag? I did, and it was so much fun! Your learners with special needs, physical handicaps, or visual impairments can play a classic and highly engaging game with a few minor adaptations. The best part is,...

Star Wars holds enduring fascination for generations of kids. Use this interest to help kids with autism learn their personal information. Young Jedis practice recording their first and last names, addresses, birth dates, and phone...

Here is a fun resource that your kids will love. While reading the book Because of Winn-Dixie, they analyze the story's main characters by creating an online scrapbook. The purpose is to have them identify character traits and use...

"O pun" the door on this activity. Have your pupils compare the puns and word play in scenes from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to those in Gary Blackwood’s The Shakespeare Stealer. Warm up and introductory activities, as well as...

Being expressive in a creative, empathetic, or imaginative way is not only fun, it builds good pre-writing and communication skills. Learners with visual impairments have a roundtable discussion session where several sentence frames...

The laws of momentum can lead to fun! Learners with visual impairments use bowling pins and a bowling ball to model the law of conservation of momentum. They take turns bowling with differing degrees of force to explore how energy is...

Playing piano is great fun and playing jazz is even better. Kids watch a video of Fats Waller playing the song, "Handful of Keys," they then use either a piano key print out or Orff instruments to practice his signature stride piano...

A biography writing lesson plan with a tasty twist! Kids create a "visual biography" in which each pizza slice represents a paragraph, and toppings represent supporting details. They learn research techniques, note-taking skills, and how...

Inquiry is probably one of the most fun ways kids learn. They will test the hardness of 10 different minerals in order to classify them. They rate each of the minerals from most to least hard. Note: Having real minerals for this...

Find out just how enticing learning about neurons can be by creating models with sugar cookies, icing, and candy. With great background information for you and an easy procedure for the kids, studying cells has never been more fun or...

Red, yellow, blue. Orange, purple, green. Introduce kids to primary and secondary colors with a series of videos and a 19-slide presentation that shows how mixing primary colors produces secondary colors.

Kids can practice their observation and evidence-based argument skills with a fun and engaging look at artifacts. With a given set of objects, each child will sketch and describe the object, then partners work together to determine...

Here is a good game that will determine which team knows the most about the Sonoran Desert tortoise. There are 16 questions posed, and the answers are printed in bold for the benefit of the teacher. Question # 16 reads, "Desert tortoise...

Caricature drawing is fun, and can help learners explore the principle of design and content specific vocabulary. They view a video and books that use character drawings, discuss vocabulary such as exaggeration, proportion, and symmetry,...

Although this vocabulary-in-context activity is focused on Judith Viorst's book Alexander, Who Use to Be Rich Last Sunday, the strategy can be applied to any book budding learners read with you. First, introduce the three...

Lorinda Cauley's book Clap Your Hands is a fun way to expand budding readers' vocabulary in context (although you could use any book for this strategy). To prepare kids, introduce the following terms before...

Welcome to the café! Introduce beginning French speakers to food-related vocabulary and using the conditional tense to place an order. This plan gets your kids up and moving. They look at French menus, identify quantity expressions (like...

Here is a fun and fast-paced game of shooting baskets. This game uses two basketballs and a line of players at the free-throw line. Player 1 shoots at the basket and tries to make a basket before player 2 makes a basket. If player 1...