Seventh graders create a toy, game or story suitable for a young child. They research magazines, catalogs, and child development texts for ideas. Students consider the age and development of the child.

Students consider toys as more than items for playing, compare and contrast inventors and toys they created, and discuss purpose of specific toys, including whether toy was created for education, financial success, or both.

Students learn about another culture.  For this cultural awareness lesson, students learn about the location of the kingdom of Lesotho in southern Africa, discuss the toys used in Lesotho to those used in the United States and draw...

Students reflect on their favorite childhood toys and assess their continued appeal. They work in pairs to redesign classic toys and create posters to represent their new models.

Learners use primary sources to analyze advertisements, prices, and styles of Lincoln Logs from Carson Pirie Scott catalogs from 1952 to 1960. Students then compare modern-day toy to Lincoln Logs of the 1950s by analyzing differences in...

Two's a negotiation, but three's a mediation! Demonstrate the differences between the two processes through a role-playing lesson. The activity familiarizes pupils with the role of a mediator and examines the types of situations that...

Students analyze emergencies. In this safety lesson, students discover when and why they should dial 9-1-1. They discuss as a group various scenarios in which they would need to call 9-1-1 and then role-play those situations. This lesson...

Spy games are not just for professionals anymore! Scholars use short video clips, primary documents, and photographs to investigate Nazi spies in America during World War II.  The young detectives analyze the paranoia warfare can...

Students participate in two unfair activities to explain the concept of fairness. Then they role-play different scenarios demonstrating the idea of fairness. They discuss reasons to make rules and complete a web chart on fairness.

Students analyze artifacts to become familiar with the Great Migration.  In this migration lesson, students read an article and answer comprehension questions. Students role play a migration scenario using an artifact to help...

Students study rules and consequences as well as learn positive, healthy behaviors in and out of the classroom. In this behavior activity, students discuss behaviors that got them into trouble at home. Students name trouble behaviors at...

Fourth graders investigate pioneer Studentss games. They research various games, play a pioneer game, and in small groups, create their own original pioneer game to teach to the class.

Students explore the concept of proper canine treatment.  In this social skills lesson, students decide if the teacher's statement about treatment of dogs is good or bad.  Students then play games to show their new knowledge of...

Students demonstrate conflict resolution skills. In this character education lesson, students read the book Oh, Bother! Someone's Fighting! and sing a song which models a conflict resolution strategy.

Students learn about and identify feelings of happiness, sadness and disappointment. In this feelings lesson, students have a show and tell time about their pets and discuss how it would feel if they lost their pet. Students watch a...

Students practice throwing and catching with a partner or self toss-catch. As a prerequisite skill they should understand safe spaces and have some knowledge of throwing and catching skills.

In this Gulf oil spill worksheet, students examine a 4-page article regarding basic facts about the oil spill as well as photographs of clean-up efforts.

Guess what is in the bag! Use this lesson at the beginning of the year to discuss appropriate items for 4th grade students to have in school. Each group develops a list of appropriate items as well as inappropriate items, and discusses...

Turn your students into flocks of migratory birds for this fun lesson on animal migration. Prior to the activity, the teacher creates four different migration routes in the classroom or any available open space, labeling nesting...

Second graders are read the story "Tattered Sails". Using the text, they discover the reasons why the Pilgrims came to America. They identify the hardships they faced on the voyage and once they settled on land. Using a map, they locate...

In this activity, students will use a collection of objects as the basis for writing a tale about the people who used them.

Students create a Kwanzaa memory book. In this memory book lesson, students cut a cover from a brown paper bag and use ziplock bags as pages. In the ziplock bags they put construction paper with photos and drawings. 

Agent Pincher: The Case of the UFO--Unfamiliar Foreign Objects. That is what currency from another country may look like. Sometimes when people first try to use money from another country, they feel like they are playing with toy...