Young mathematicians complete various activities to demonstrate proficiency in telling time and identifying elapsed time. They analyze and discuss television schedules, create a booklet about their daily activities, produce a TV. guide,...

Second graders complete a variety of activities related to the book "The Clever Monkey" by Rob Cleveland. They answer story comprehension questions, and rewrite the story. Students also complete a comprehension and fact or opinion...

Second graders read and discuss the folktale "The Drum" from India. They also answer story comprehension questions, complete an adjectives and verb worksheet, and label a map of India. Students sequence events from the story and make...

Why do readers need to know an author’s purpose? How do you figure out what that purpose is? Guide your pupils through a series of activities that show them how to identify various techniques and structures used in persuasive writing....

Benjamin Franklin was an inventor, and he was fascinated by the mechanics of machinery. Using a fun exploration, pupils examine simple machines from the pre-Industrial era. Then, they must identify and build their own using common objects.

To understand the impact coal mining has on the environment, pupils will extract chocolate chips from a cookie. Imagine the cookie is the environment and the chips are the coal. Instruct them to mine as many chips as they can, then have...

Jackie Robinson's attempt to earn a spot on the 1946 Brooklyn Dodgers provides learners with an opportunity to examine the Jim Crow laws and revisit issues of segregation and integration. "The Unconquerable Doing the Impossible: Jackie...

Why do metals rust differently? Scholars experiment with metal combinations in a hands-on activity. They create unique environments with different metals and compare the rate and amount of rust for each.

Here is a good lesson on butterflies and caterpillars. After listening to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, young learners put cards that depict the life cycle of a butterfly in the correct order. There are some good ideas for center...

How do you convey someone’s creativity? Individuals answer the question as they design exhibitions to showcase the intellect and genius of Benjamin Franklin. After conducting research, classmates work in groups to try to capture and...

Students complete a variety of activities related to the folktale from India, "The Drum." They listen to the story and answer comprehension questions, construct a coffee can drum, and complete a phonics and matching worksheet.

Students complete a variety of activities related to the book "Math Curse" by Jon Scieszka. They write a story about a day in their life that includes illustrations, fifteen math problems, the written story, and an answer key. Students...

Explore objective and subjective writing in this interdisciplinary lesson, which brings language arts and visual art together. Middle and high school students examine the sculpture Head with Horns by Paul Gauguin. They then analyze the...

Women's voices are becoming more prominent in the world of literature, but for centuries, this wasn't the case. Young historians research a woman whose writings are considered to be lost, out of print, or forgotten. They develop an oral...

Students identify between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors at work. For this work behaviors lesson, students use a dictionary to define the related terms and visit various links to complete activities that define work place...

Students participate in an interdisciplinary lesson to discuss improvements that would make them want to return to a previously poor neighborhood.  In this civics lesson, students work in a budget to make a plan to better their...

Enhance a unit on historical fiction with an engaging writing instructional activity. Learners bring the Industrial Era to life as they compose their own historical fiction pieces based on primary source images of Pittsburgh steel...

What are the effects of competition in an academic environment? The competition between the main characters in A Separate Peace motivates a series of activities that asks readers to take a stance on competition, and then to develop a...

Practice comparing and contrasting details in informational text with a reading passage about whales. It explains the ways that fish and whales are similar, as well as the ways they are different, and specific characteristics of various...

The sun's diameter is 864,337 miles—challenge learners to create a scale model of the solar system that fits in your classroom. Scholars make conversions and work with scientific notation as they create the scale model. 

Learn about polymers while playing with shrinky dinks. Young scholars create a shrinky dink design, bake it, and then record the area, volume, and thickness over time. They model the data using a graph and highlight the key features of...

It's time to slow your roll! Can your class create a track that allows a marble to roll as slowly as possible? Teams of science scholars collaborate to design, build, and test their tubes while learning about gravity and friction.

Is progress progressing too fast? So believes the Lorax, the eponymous character from Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. Young environmental science young scholars read the book and debate the arguments of the Lorax and the Once-ler regarding...

Writing funny poems is the best part about learning poetic forms! Young poets learn all about clerihews—humorous four-line poems about people—with an explanatory lesson.