Rumpelstiltskin understood the power of names. The second lesson in the First Days of School series focuses on building community by recognizing the importance of the relationships among names, identities, and cultures. Learners engage...

How does weather play a role in the lives of land and sea creatures? Find out with a lesson focused on habitats and the ways animals from different homes are connected. Here, learners explore how the life of a jaguar and howler...

Here's an amazing writing guide that deserves a place in your curriculum library. The 136-page packet provides focus lessons on the writing process, expository, persuasive, and timed writing, the Cornell system of note taking, and...

Who keeps animals safe? Who keeps us safe? Discover the helpers that make learning and growing possible through a medley of activities that focus on habitats—ours and those in the rainforest. Scholars are asked to identify one...

The final lesson in the First Days of School series focuses on how to build a classroom community where all class members can feel safe, heard, and valued. The resource includes step-by-step directions for engaging pupils in developing...

Aspiring artists and budding writers combine their skills in an interactive lesson. Young scholars become authors when they create their own picture books focused on social justice. The resource guides learners through the writing and...

Explore ocean habitats with a lesson that showcases the home of manatees and loggerhead turtles in Belize. Here, pupils compare and contrast the homes of ocean animals to those of humans, listen to an original short story about...

Masks, a pandemic, remote learning, and isolation; scholars reflect on the past school year and consider what positive things they would like to see continued in the current school year and what negative things they would like to...

Many of us have multiple identities. There's who we are at home, school, friends, and strangers. And often these identities come with different names. The third activity in the First Days of School series examines how names reflect...

Excerpts from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and from John Fante's Ask the Dust, as well as a variety of primary source documents provide the background for an examination of the migrant experience from 1920-1945.

Elementary pupils are introduced to the Great Depression as a critical period of hardship in United States history. They engage in collaborative assignments researching the Dust Bowl, the New Deal, US presidents, and presidential libraries.

An art showcase encourages class members to explore the themes of social justice and tolerance. They create an original artwork, engage in group discussions, and journal writing. The art gallery also provides a chance for families and...

Flotsam by David Wiesner and The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor by Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Degen, begin a reading adventure pack focusing on oceans. With story listening and thoughtful discussion, scholars complete several...

In the post-pandemic classroom, it's more important than ever to begin the school year by building a strong sense of trust and community. Using the Make Meaning and Big Paper teaching techniques, groups develop a definition of community...

The Society for the History of Psychology provides a list of teaching activities designed to acquaint learners with the various fields of psychology and introduce them to prominent psychologists. Details for several of the activities are...

Here's a must-have packet for your curriculum library. If you are interested in Fahrenheit 451, if you are interested in Ray Bradbury, if you are interested in censorship, if you interested in programs that make a difference, then...

Clever! Participants don square-foot cardboard shoes to mark out the rain garden plot that they have spent the last few weeks designing. In this way, they are practicing scale modeling as well! Note that this lesson is part of a unit,...

The best way to understand shapes is to make them. Young geometers explore basic shapes through a variety of gross motor and fine motor activities. Shape sorting, singing songs about shapes, and eating shape snacks are just a few of the...

A Reading Adventure Pack focuses on cooking. Scholars participate in three hands-on activities after reading the fiction book Easy as Pie by Cari Best and the nonfiction book How Did That Get in My Lunchbox? by Chris Butterworth....

If you could frame something important to you, what would it be, where would you hang it, and why would you choose this particular thing to frame? These questions launch a lesson designed to help class members get to know each other....

Can you create a poem without writing a word! With found poetry, you can! Practice one version of found poetry with a lesson on book spine poems. Learners create poems by stacking books and reading the lines created by their spine titles.

A repetition poem is the focus of a lesson that challenges scholars to compose an original piece. To add meaning to their poem, authors choose words to repeat at the start of most lines.  

Music is the focus of the reading adventure pack. After reading, pupils complete hands-on activities. Scholars use household items to make shakers and cymbals. They listen to eclectic music by turning on the radio, borrowing music from...

What do you see? Wish a happy birthday to Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The lesson includes six extension activities for the books and its companion stories, including a maze and...