Fourth graders investigate ecosystems. In this ecosystem lesson, 4th graders explore producers, consumers, and decomposers and study the interdependence of each.

Students study the properties of volcanoes and earthquakes.  In this earthquakes and volcanoes lesson students write a story on what they did during their experiment. 

Students are read "The Rainbow Fish Big Book". They discuss how each one of them are unique in some way. They decorate their own fish to show their characteristics and shares it with the class so they are able to learn about each other.

Students investigate the meaning of community. In this community lesson plan, students look at the concepts of civic engagement, civic responsibility, and common good. They determine how a classroom is a community and the need for having...

Middle schoolers discuss the lives of both Aristotle and Newton in order to bring important differences between the two to the forefront. They evaluate two statements about motion and use the ideas from the discussion to determine which...

Students create shields representing what they value most. In this art lesson, students observe shields in the book The Legend of the Bluebonnet and create their own shields depicting the four things they value most in life.

Students explore light. In this properties of light activity, students define the terms refract, reflect, and diffract after listening to the teacher's description. Students listen to the book Light Magic and observe a spoon in a glass...

Young scholars use their spelling words in a variety of ways such as repetition, spelling puzzles, and spelling sentences. In this spelling lesson plan, students do a spelling activity for each day of the week.

Students identify the characteristics of the American flag and create a Pledge of Allegiance bookmark. They discuss the symbolism of the U.S. flag, and identify the meaning of the stripes and the stars on the flag. Students then create a...

Students practice the days of the week. In this week lesson, students listen to the story "Today is Monday" and discuss what food matches with each day of the week. The students put food cards out to match the story and draw these on a...

Students learn the various parts of a farm and what is grown on a farm. They also match fruits and vegetables to locations where they are grown.

First graders participate in dissecting a squid. They identify and locate specific parts of a squid with teacher guidance. They draw a picture of what their squid looked like and label specific parts.

Can your learners stump you with questions? Find out with this question-centered activity! After reading a portion of My Antonia by Willa Cather, pupils question the teacher. Once the first round is complete, the class reads more and...

Invite your kindergarteners to explore sound and hearing. Using film canisters, or containers, filled with items from the story "Are You My Mother?" they will predict what the objects were from the story. Tip: you could create a...

Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida is used in an activity that models how to develop questions to aid in comprehension of a text.

Connect the geography and history of Illinois using an art-centered lesson on the railroads. The railroad connected once-distant places, particularly in the Midwest. Using research, class members create postcards of fictional cross-state...

Help readers recognize elements in a story. They will use pictures and text to gain meaning from written material. Have learners listen to the story A Plump and Perky Turkey and participate in a discussion. They recognize the...

A superb interdisciplinary approach highlights this lesson which incorporates space science knowledge and narrative skills. After reading The Magic School Bus, two excellent poems, and watching a video, all about our solar system, young...

Learners practice using capital letters for proper nouns and adjectives. They play a matching game with word cards and correct paragraphs with incorrect capitalization, and edit their work with a partner.  

Students use the vocabulary words they have been learning and hearing as part of their study of China to make a book. They can create a dictionary or a book in any number of forms depending on the grade level.

Students discover the general life cycle of a plant, the parts of a plant, and what it needs to grow. They plant bean seeds and discuss the parts of a plant and what it needs to grow.

Pupils study and become familiar with parts of a plant by using multi-media resources. They publish a story about plants using a word processing program and include new plant vocabulary that they have learned.

Students make a variety of books using the computer program iPhoto and digital images of their choosing. This lesson for the upper-elementary classroom includes an example of student work and four possible lesson extensions and...

Students reflect upon the role of embedded journalists in today's media climate. They write about why would journalists not want to consider themselves part of the "group" that makes up the military unit they are assigned to. Also,...