Spark interest in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with an anticipatory exercise that begins with a brainstorm around the words heroic and good boy. Pupils then complete an anticipation guide, discuss the results in groups, and...

Everyone is familiar with the beginning of Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be or not to be..." While reading Hamlet, help your middle schoolers analyze the lines that follow, but how do you help them make personal connections to the text? Use...

An activity focuses on final sounds sorting. Scholars pull objects out of a bag, identify what letter sound the object ends with, then draw the picture under the appropriate column.

Practice converting a conventional number into scientific notation, and vice-versa. Using an applet, they perform the operations of multiplication and division on numbers expressed in scientific notation.

Students gain an understanding of how the powers of 10 and scientific notation can be used to represent the scale of things in the universe. They relate the number of stars in the universe to the number of grains of sand on Earth's beaches.

With a few extra numbers, these fact families would be complete! After looking at an example, scholars write in the sums and differences for six equations as part of three different fact families. This is really for beginners to this...

Fifth graders explore equality and inequality by participating in a Tilt/Balance activity. The students listen to the story "Lemonade for Sale" by Stuart J. Murphy and use equations to graph lemonade sale profits.

Bring a little excitement to your next poetry analysis lesson. Using the highly energetic poem "Walking With My Iguana," learners consider poem structure and rhyme. They listen to the poem, discuss the rhythm and tone with their...

Play letter sound detective with your class, and snoop out sounds, onsets, blends, and rhyme. In pairs, children take turns choosing a card from the pile; as they sound out part of the word, their partner attempts to figure out which...

Which of these words begins with the letter e? Scholars become familiar with lowercase letters e and f by visually matching. After tracing each letter, they draw lines from the letter to images beginning with the same...

Which one rhymes? There are four starting objects here, each heading a row of three objects. Learners identify the objects and their vowel sounds to determine which one rhymes with the first object. All these rhyming words involve the...

Here is a simple sorting activity which is appropriate for pre-k and kindergarten learners. Pupils sort each of four items into the correct group, then count the totals and write the numbers in the boxes provided. Along with being a good...

Somewhat of a puzzle, this problem gets pre-algebra preteens to write an expression representing a seating chart using triangle-shaped tables. This single task is an applicable lesson for meeting sixth grade Common Core math standards....

Remember whose parents came to Back-to-School Night with a pre-made sign-in sheet that requires attendees to write their name, phone number, email address, and more. 

I know exactly how you feel. That may be a statement between Henrietta Lacks and John Moore. Scholars read John Moore's story and compare his story of cell use to that of Henrietta. Learners record in a vocabulary journal, analyze...

Jacksonian Democracy ... a total success or a complete failure? Young academics examine Jacksonian Democracy, including the concept of the supremacy of the federal government and the forced relocation of Native Americans. Scholars...

Double, double scholars' appreciation of the Scottish Play with a guide that adds a rich brew of pre-reading background information, chapter discussion questions, activities, and writing prompts to provide readers with a "firm and good"...

Young scholars participate in a game that deals with homophones. They review the rules to the game and work in teams to run up to the board and write two more versions to each homograph called out by the teacher. All team members...

High schoolers research the evolution and cultural significance of the Arabic ghazal form of poetry. They, in groups, compose an original ghazal poem and read it aloud to the class.

You'll C-E-R a difference in classroom achievement after using a helpful instructional activity. Designed for economics, civics, government, and US history classes, participants practice using the CER model to craft arguments about...

In this printing instructional activity, students trace 13 lowercase e's and print more within the lines provided. In the example, students are given arrows that guide them in writing the letter.

Readers identify main ideas and supporting details using informational texts. In this literacy lesson plan, they make predictions and read the text to find the main ideas. They use a table diagram to define the main idea and supporting...

Eighth graders investigate the effect that connotations can have on writing. They are shown examples to build background knowledge before attempting the exercise. They finish by writing a paragraph to practice what they have learned.

Bring Edgar Allan Poe's spooky story to life! After reading the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," middle and high schoolers identify the theme, character traits, irony, and other story concepts. During pre-reading, they take notes,...