Discuss movies and movie enjoyment with your middle school language arts class. They interpret movie review information, determine appropriate movies, and then write film reviews to share with the class. Focus on using context clues to...

Successful people know that they never stop learning. Eighth graders explore their preferred ways to learn new information with a reflective lesson about learning styles, that features surveys, writing prompts, and...

Students listen to a read aloud of Rosemary Wells, Yoko as they begin a study of Japanese culture and customs. They experience Japanese food, geography and culture. They write a friendly letter to the author.

An informative module highlights eight polynomial concepts. Learners work with polynomial functions, expressions, and equations through graphing, simplifying, and solving. 

Fifth graders portray one of the actual framers of the Constitution. They summarize each class period with a journal entry and culminate the experience with the actual framing and signing (or not signing) of the Constitution.

Sixth graders solve math problems from a folktale story.  In this solving math problems from a folktale story lesson, 6th graders read the Paul Bunyan folktale.  Students determine today's cost of the meals that Paul Bunyan...

Students explore the natural environment through a video and nature sounds tape. They keep journal's of the unit's activities and vocabulary terms. They play a web of interdependence game and compose a list of forest animals and write...

Second graders explore fraction with Cuisenaire Rods. In this fraction lesson, 2nd graders recieve "recipe" cards for adding fractions. After practicing, students create their own cards then exchange  with each other to...

Get everyone up and participating! High schoolers reading Mythology, by Edith Hamilton, complete a graphic organizer independently, and then record one of their thoughts on the white board for a silent discussion. Decide how you're going...

Use a vocabulary asssignment as a quick activity between reading chapters of Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Young readers choose their favorite words from the vocabulary word list to describe Sal, Phoebe, or any other character from...

Music, art, and poetry coalesce in a single exhibition, and in a single lesson. Critical thinkers analyze the Fluxus art movement as it's seen in the work of Paul Chan's 7 Lights. They consider the use of poetry and music in his...

Question: What do rectangles and bathtub volume have in common? Answer: Linear equations. Learn how to identify situations that have constant rates by examining two different situations, one proportional and one not proportional.

Here’s a fresh approach to establishing classroom rules at the beginning of the school year. Class groups brainstorm what they know about rules for baseball, basketball, and football. They then consider how the games would differ without...

Primary learners complete pre reading, writing, during reading, and interdisciplinary activities for the book First Day of School. They will  complete journal entries, answer short answer questions, have discussions, and much...

Third graders study machines. They watch a video about and identify and chart machines they find at home and at school. They design and build simple and compound machines, create an advertisement for them and attempt to sell them at the...

Second graders practice asking the 5 W questions by reading a Boxcar Children book.  In this journalism lesson, 2nd graders read a single story from the Boxcar Children series and answer the 5 W's about each specific chapter....

Introduce your young readers to fiction written by women authors. For each story, they explore the way these daughters discover and claim their own identities. Individually, class members use the literature to examine their role in their...

Students examine "Washington Crossing the Delaware." In this American Revolution lesson, students analyze the painting, research its background, and then perform skits based on their findings. 

To gain an understanding of Imperialism, class members read Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden" and Mark Twain's essay, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." Groups compare these perceptions of non-white cultures with the...

LEGO see if you can recreate my design. Individuals build an arrangement from LEGO blocks and write directions for someone else to follow in order to recreate the arrangement. Pairs then swap directions and try to...

The Burmese python is on the loose ... and he's hungry! Illustrate the differences between causative and correlative relationships through an inquiry lesson. Pupils examine several sources of information to determine if there is a...

Students, in cooperative groups, design and create a wildflower garden for the community. They write letters to property owners requesting use of their land and then write invitations to their parents and to local, state, and federal...

Geometers learn how to measure the area in square units. They use the floor in the classroom as a visual to measure a square foot area. They use classmates to fill the space and expand the measured area square foot by square foot until...

Middle schoolers write an editorial giving an opinion of whether or not Quetzalcoatl has arrived and if so, what the Aztecs should do.  They discuss whether or not they believe Quetzalcoatl is a god or a man, and use an Editorial...