Make sure you are well-informed before embarking on a study of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. This resource includes an analysis of the text that a teacher can use to prepare a unit of study. It covers plot elements, themes,...

Designed for teachers who plan on using Markus Zusak's  The Book Thief, this packet includes background information about the author, themes addressed in and issues raised by the novel, a list of research and project ideas, and...

A pet can offer comfort, friendship, and loyalty in the most stressful of situations. Here is a lesson plan that explores the important role animals played during the Civil War. Class members read informative texts, complete a...

Explore the characters in My Antonia by Willa Cather with a biopoem assignment. Pupils use the provided format to write their poems about any character from the book.

To gain a better understanding of characters in Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, kids create a biopoem for one of her characters.

In need of a set of math vocabulary cards for beginning mathematicians? Use a resource that contains 15 vocabulary cards. The top half of each sheet has the word printed in bold text, while the bottom is a picture representing the...

Why do shadows look different in the summer than in the winter? What causes day and night? How can a sundial be used to tell time? Answer these questions and more through two engaging lessons about light and shadows. Fourth and fifth...

Youngsters discover who the leaders in their community are and what it means to build a community in this four-lesson unit. 

Tap into the information included in this in-depth analysis of Running Out of Time when planning your unit. The document includes a plot summary, analysis of the literary elements in the novel, implications for various student groups,...

How do we determine how much information to include and what can be left out? By playing a game of 20 questions, the class generates the best strategies for finding a number. They then move on to guessing the next letter in a short...

Teach your class to think outside the box. Scholars use the concept of equality to solve a problem in the assessment task. They determine how to use a scale to identify the one box out of a set of nine boxes that is heavier than the others.

Students investigate how to create drawings using a word processing program. They examine the use of draw tools in Microsoft Word. They combine drawing with the patterns they made for a truss bridge projects. They follow the teacher's...

Use text marking and highlighting to explore the structure of a poem. After listening to Allan Ahlberg read "Please Mrs. Butler," learners locate stanzas and patterns on their copy of the poem using the text marking technique. Class...

High schoolers evaluate several works by Edgar Allen Poe based on the criteria in his essay, "The Philosophy of Composotion" Their analysis is documented using a graphic organizer. Learners begin the pre-writing process for their own...

Use this instructional activity to help make explicit the connection between sentence structure, audience, and author's purpose. Readers track and find patterns in sentence structure in various nonfiction texts, and connect it to...

Keeping a steady beat, singing soft, loud, and in unison - sounds like music class to me! First graders practice these skills while listening to the song, "I Mailed Myself to You" for Valentine's Day. This is a simple and age appropriate...

Students study writing structure and patterns in repetitive texts. In this writing structure lesson, students read portions of a story and predict what will come next based on the repetitive text. Students create their own repetitive...

Learners make logical patterns in their writing to demonstrate the trait of organization. In this organization lesson plan, students focus on events proceeding logically.

Students take a closer look at the organization of written pieces. In this writing skills lesson plan, students examine transitions, repetition, parallelism, and other organizational patterns in writing. 

Tenth graders read and study, in-depth, a specific classical tragedy, in this case, Oedipus. They explore strategies from making meaning out of or interpreting texts, as well as strategies for determining how authors create meaning in...

Third graders study the relationship between base 5 and base 10. They determine zero is a place holder and how to read and write base 5 numbers. They reinforce previously observed patterns in base 5 pieces. They choose another base and...

Students use pencil and paper to explore the Coriolis effect and how the Earth's rotation causes global wind patterns.

After reading Pat Hutchins’ Rosie’s Walk, have your young cartographers create a map of Rosie’s walk. Then lead them on a walk around the school. When you return class members sequence the walk by making a list of how the class got from...

Considering using Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry for book circles or whole-class study? First time teachers, and those who have used the text before, will find some interesting tidbits in this overview.