Sometimes what you get is far more than what you first see. The third routine in the Building Community series asks participants to engage in a See, Think, Wonder strategy. Small groups analyze a projected image, infer what is happening,...

Middle schoolers learn how to "put stress to rest" by identifying their stress factors and the physical and emotional signs they exhibit when stressed. After the class brainstorms ways to handle these stressors, individuals commit to...

Young astronomers learn about the Big Bang Theory and redshift through a hands-on activity in the last installment of a three-part series. Participants draw dots on balloons and then inflate them to model how galaxies moved farther apart...

Keep an eye on the growth of your sixth graders' reading and writing skills with the help of this practice Common Core assessment. Working their way through the six included fiction and nonfiction reading passages, learners answer a...

Wouldn't your class members love to become millionaires? It doesn't happen overnight. Teach young entrepreneurs about personal finance and money management with a series of lessons focused on money math. Pupils learn about...

Just how many toothpicks does the pattern take? After watching a video of someone building a pattern with toothpicks, groups create methods to find the number of toothpicks needed to accomplish that task. Groups either use explicit...

Enthusiastic readers take part in a book club unit that focuses on genre, particularly historical fiction, fantasy, and adventure. Over the course of 10 days, groups read a variety of stories and choose leveled activities from a learning...

Is Sherlock Holmes an inductivist or a deductivist? Users of this interactive to distinguish between inductive and deductive reasoning. They consider in various situations whether it is better to list evidence and then introduce a claim...

Japanese Internment and World war II are the focus of a KWHL strategy used to scaffold for a reading of Journey to Topaz,  Yoshiko Uchida's story of 11-year-old Yuki Sakane and her family. Complete directions for the activity...

Eleventh graders demonstrate how to study for exams using Reciprocal Teaching technique. They apply new reading strategies when studying for an exam. They demonstrate a variety fo strategies before, during, and after reading to increase...

Prior to reading Maus I and II, class members fill in a KWL chart to determine what they want to learn and how to find information about World War II and the Holocaust. Consider gathering packets of information and research sites before...

Help your pupils discover the power of context clues by teaching the this vocabulary strategy. Designed to go with words from Willa Cather's My Antonia, this exercise focuses on having individuals use their own words to define new...

The skill of prediction as a reading strategy is explored. Learners are shown how to use clues within a story, along with pictures, to make predictions as to what's going to happen in the story. A clever in-class game which uses objects...

First graders use principles for learning useful, interesting and sophisticated words based on scientifically-based reading research. They expand their vocabulary knowledge of Tier 2 words through explicit, direct instruction.

Turn your readers into "examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators," with a KWHL strategy designed for Fahrenheit 451. Individuals fill out a KWHL graphic organizer about censorship and then share responses with a group. The...

Third grade musicians play Orff instruments while they learn about the AB Form. First they learn part A of a song, then they listen to when the song changes. After they understand the concept of AB form, they learn to play part B. Note:...

First graders identify, comprehend, and evaluate the content and artistic aspects of oral and visual presentations. Then they participate in formal and informal presentations and discussions of issues and ideas. Students also create...

Invite your pupils to do the teaching when it comes to the vocabulary in Pudd'nhead Wilson. Each individual is assigned one word to research in depth and teach to classmates, one pupil at a time.

Prepare for any writing assignment with a series of prewriting activities. The resource includes instruction sheets, graphic organizers for brainstormng, and sample writing prompts.

In order to truly understand The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, you'll need to provide middle schoolers with background information about the Holocaust. After contributing as many words as they can associate with the Holocaust, such as...

In many places in the world, people go to great lengths to get books to read. This beginning-of-the-year activity uses pictures of people reading in extraordinary situations to stimulate effective listening and speaking using the...

Provide young scholars with the tools they need to succeed with this reference on the Cornell note-taking strategy. By breaking the content of lessons into main ideas, supporting details, and overall summaries, students are...

There is more than one way to solve a multiplication problem, and many learners find that the lattice multiplication method can be a helpful one. Fourth graders take an initial formative assessment before working in groups of two or...

Factoring doesn't have to be intimidating. Build on prior knowledge of multiplying binomials and factoring simple trinomials to teach advanced factoring of quadratic expressions with a instructional activity that uses various methods of...