Is consistency foolish? Or is “foolish consistency . . . the hobgoblin of little minds”? Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self Reliance” provides readers with an opportunity to reflect on their own musing about being self-reliant and about...

Film analysis takes critical thinking, connections, and context. Upper graders look at the film installation, Crystal Palace in terms of the film makers choices, presentation, and perspective of truth. After an analytical discussion...

Is the secret to success turning an interest into a career? Eleventh graders explore the occupation-interest connection in a career education lesson. Individuals first take an interest inventory and then create a presentation about a...

Everyone takes a different journey through grief. A series of lesson plans for the novel Counting by 7s introduces readers to the main character who loses her parents in a car crash. Discussion questions and writing prompts combine...

Grandma said to gargle with salt water for a sore throat. Was she right? In the last part of the seven-part unit, lab groups design an experiment to test a cells reaction to salt solutions. The pupils conduct their experiment to answer...

Kirk Beckendorf, a middle school teacher, joined researchers at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica to help maintain automatic weather stations. The lesson encourages pupils to track his travels around the region. They connect with the...

What influences the way you dress, or celebrate holidays, or connect with your friends? Explore the cultural traits that are not easily seen with an engaging discussion. Using the model of an iceberg, learners place features of culture...

Totally gross out your class with the eighth lesson plan in this series on food science. Explore the microscopic world of bacteria by taking swabs of different classroom objects and growing colonies in petri dishes. An engaging activity...

Imagine you are a soldier in the Civil War. What are you wearing? What do you need to carry with you? Examine the life of a person during the Civil War, from drummer boys to powder monkeys to musket-toting soldiers. Elementary...

Shakespeare's plays may be old, but they still have relevant lessons for today's world! A collection of lesson plans uses examples from The Merchant of Venice and District Merchants to teach about bravery. In addition to learning...

In this language arts worksheet, 5th graders find the personal connections that are made with the text and write down the words from the book.

Learners research why government community workers are important to us. They work in teams to identify and illustrate the jobs and services provided by these community workers. Assessment comes from their Student Concept Maps.

Young scholars examine the Edgar Allan Poe story "The Cask of Amontillado." In this character lesson, students discuss and analyze the characters in the story. Young scholars make personal connections to the characters and create a...

Students listen to parent speakers who discuss how they use math in their professional or personal lives. They take notes and write business form thank you letters.

Students use online self-assessment inventories to aid them in making career decisions. In this career decisions instructional activity, students visit the given website and identify their strengths and weaknesses. Students complete an...

Fifth graders create healthy menus. In this nutrition lesson, 5th graders research healthy eating options using the Internet, and design a personal food pyramid.

Students develop skills in making nutritionally-sound food choices. Keeping a food diary, they analyze their food intake using the food pyramid as a guide. Students identify and explain the relationship of nutrition to personal health...

Raise children's awareness about the importance of conservation with this hands-on science lesson. Start by breaking the class into groups and having them collect trash from around the school or local park. Students then use the provided...

Make a connection between empathy and bullying with a reading passage that has readers thinking about other people's feelings. After reading, learners respond to ten reading comprehension questions involving short answer and multiple...

Scholars demonstrate what they know about the separation of powers through role play. Two individuals act out a skit as the remaining class members discuss and decide whether the interaction they observed is an appropriate example...

Which shoes match? This is surely an activity your preschoolers do daily, so use it in an educational way. They match shoes to make pairs, connecting the matches with a line. There are eight pairs in all. Next, youngsters get to draw a...

Although this vocabulary strategy would work in the context of any text, it's a piece of cake if you're reading Judi Barrett's book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Go over the terms they will hear so pupils are ready to...

In this health worksheet, students examine the human body and make mental connections to the target function highlighted in the sheet.