Want a handy way to remember the difference between metaphors and similes, or allusions and alliteration? Individuals craft their own figurative language booklet, complete with definitions, examples, and illustrations, following...

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

Make a study of Timothy and his development as a character over the course of the first half or so of The Cay. This idea focuses in particular on chapters 10 through 12. Learners start out by working on double-entry journals created in...

Seventh graders create and engineer model transportation vehicles using crafting materials. They use technical drawing to develop their ideas and choose the appropriate tools and processes during the manufacturing of their designs. They...

Students participate in a lesson that covers the concepts of solving equations and inequalities. To master the concept they must demonstrate visually and verbally how both sides of an equation must be balanced. They construct a balanced...

Challenge young learners to cut the clutter with this fun engineering project. As employees of a home and office supply company, young engineers are asked to develop devices that organize everyday items. After participating in a...

Can you design the perfect chair? Scholars apply the engineering design process to design and build a prototype of a new type of chair from wires. They test their designs with a wooden artist model or stuffed animal.

When your parents say that your room's a pig sty, tell them about biomimicry. The sixth installment of a nine-part Life Science unit has scholars research the shelters used by animals in the natural world, like turtle shells. Using the...

Wrap up your unit on The Cay with an engaging argumentative writing assignment. Writers must decide if they believe The Cay should be banned. The resource includes links to several articles, which have been addressed and examined in...

Have your class demonstrate their ability to compare fractions with this short multiple-choice assessment. Using the fractions 9/8 and 9/4, the students first make comparisons using both words and the greater than/less than signs. Next,...

Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

Building upon prior lessons in the series, this reading and writing exercise requires pupils to look back at their own writing, track character development in the novel The Cay, and analyze how Phillip has changed. The reading focus is...

Class members connect engineering with an understanding of linear programming using a technical resource. Scholars learn about linear programming (linear optimization) and how it applies to engineering design in the first of two modules....

Conduct a close reading of chapter 9 of The Cay. Read the chapter again and ask pupils to respond to a list of included text-dependent questions. Finish the class with the provided writing assignment, which asks learners to use textual...

The Cay has been criticized by groups such as the Council on Interracial Books for Children because of the way race is portrayed. Explore the argument against the book while taking the author's perspective into account. Class members...

Students describe, draw, and classify shapes. They use the internet to research the X-36 aircraft. Students identify the geometric shapes in the aircraft. They calculate the number of sides in an x-36.

Students review the components of the scientific inquiry method. In groups, they develop hypothesis on a variety of different topics and design an investigation or experiment to test it. They share their conclusions with the class and...

Students explore the relationships among the lengths, areas, and volumes of similar solids. They also discover what effect doubling the dimensions of a figure has on the resulting area.

Students investigate how engineers use different types of bridges for different places. In small groups they design and construct bridges for three different scenarios, and answer a series of investigating questions applied to the...

Students design an underwater vehicle. In this engineering lesson, students will design an underwater robot that includes specific systems for it to function properly. Each group will present their prototype to the class.

Dressing for success is not always about looking sharp. Sometimes it is about staying warm and dry. Present your class with an activity that challenges groups of pupils to design a layered material for blizzard conditions. The teams test...