Here is a template offering a comprehensive outline of ACT skill categories, what standards are expected to be mastered, and blank spaces for you to include how you plan to address those standards within your curriculum.

Well into Catcher in the Rye, when things are looking bleak and your readers may be needing some levity, read the picture book The Perfect Square by Michael Hall. Then use the Venn diagram included to compare how Holden Caulfield and the...

Students explore forms that water can take and examine the water cycle. In this hands-on science lesson, students participate in activities that require them to change water to a solid and back to a liquid again.

Young scholars use their senses to write descriptive sentences. In this descriptive writing lesson, students discuss their senses. Young scholars are asked to look at and feel unpopped corn kernels. Students then write descriptions of...

In this grammar learning exercise, students read 23 sentences and mark the noun clause, adjective clause, or adverb clause. They read 20 sentences to find a noun phrase, verb phrase, or prepositional phrase. 

Young elementary students will discover there are patterns all around them in their daily lives. In groups, they sort pattern blocks by size and color. Using the internet, they create their own type of patterns and share them with the...

What a wonderful way to explore wind power! Through this instructional activity, learners get a background in the history of wind power, create their own wind turbine, and the test their designs. This is a terrific way to tie scientific...

In our increasingly visual society, it is often difficult for some readers to create a mental picture of a picture created only with words. An image-rich text like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby can therefore, present a real...

First graders access prior knowledge about pumpkins and read the story Pumpkin, Pumpkin. They will sequence the life cycle of the pumpkin through the use of picture cards and then sing a song about the life cycle of the pumpkin and plant...

Who wouldn't love to get a letter from a blue bird? Elementary art enthusiasts analyze the social and historical context of Ason Yellowhair's Navajo piece, Bird and Cornstalk Rug. They examine the construction and images on the rug...

The generation of a number, or shape pattern, is the focus of this math lesson. Pupils are presented with a variety of patterns shapes, and number patterns, then use worksheets embedded in the plan to gain further practice. The...

On, over, and under are some very common prepositions; but how can you teach these concepts to children with visual impairments? Here, is one way. Kids will practice following verbal commands as they go on a classroom treasure hunt. They...

Students examine the process of drawing a picture to scale. They analyze and discuss real-life blueprints for a house, and create a scale drawing of an original invention using calculators and rulers.

Students attempt to design the tallest structure that they can with the given materials which are wooden dowels and rubber bands. They discuss the physics of their structure and how they would improve it the next time they built a...

Trace the links between a variety of math concepts in this far-reaching unit. Ideas that seem very different on the outset (like the distance formula and rigid transformations) come together in very natural and logical ways. This...

Fifth graders study the concept of momentum and its application by Newton in his studies. They view a demonstration and complete an experiment with toy cars on a racetrack that shows them the properties of momentum and how velocity and...

Most problems can be solved using more than one method. A worksheet includes just nine questions but many more ways to solve each. Scholars must graph, solve, and justify quadratic problems.

Students explore the nature of light. They use on-line articles and a worksheet to explore the roles of the eye and brain in the perception of color. They draw and label a diagram illustrating the movement of light.

In this 2-D shapes lesson, kindergarteners review plane shapes attributes. They engage in a shape hunt in the classroom and create art using plane shapes. A good, hands-on lesson!

Although the activity is designed for Gary Paulsen’s Canyons, these procedures could be used with any novel or vocabulary study. Readers select an unfamiliar word, record the sentence and chapter where the term is found, write two...

Students investigate different painting techniques by studying classic works of art.  In this art history lesson, students observe the famous Madonna and Child with Saints painting and describe the texture and images they notice....

Up, up, and away! Take your classes on a physics adventure. Learners explore the concepts important for flight. They experiment with the Bernoulli Principle while learning the forces that act on airplanes in flight.

Don't let the resource blow you away. Scholars build airboats from basic materials and collect data on how far the boats move. They refine their designs taking Newton's laws into consideration.

Students explore the drawings of Rube Goldberg to design and construct a simple machine. They discuss simple machines, and using various materials and toy parts, design and construct a "Rube Goldberg" style machine to ring a bell.