Use your tablets to participate in a culture-sharing project with a class in a foreign country. Your class can communicate and share ideas with a class in another country, swapping information regarding language and culture. Together you...

Analyze data using technology. Middle schoolers design data investigations, describe data, and draw their own conclusions. Then they select the best type of graph, graph and interpret the data, and look for patterns in trends. They also...

A great lesson plan focuses on important cultural and historical places in the state of Arkansas. Learners are introduced to six important places in Arkansas, then create a report on a place in Arkansas. Some excellent photographs,...

Students face a challenge. In this survival lesson, students discover the hardships faced by the pioneers who moved west and see if they would survive a similar situation. They discuss essential items they need to survive and...

Milk does a body good ... unless, of course, someone is lactose intolerant. Pupils play the role of pharmaceutical scientists in a guided inquiry lab about lactase. Lab groups collaborate to learn more about lactose intolerance, how...

Prompt your class to interact with Jack London's Call of the Wild. By analyzing the events in the novel, middle schoolers discover how human experiences create who a person becomes. They critique and analyze the reading, focusing on...

Students use hands-on activities to explore transformations. They view a video segment that demonstrate how M. C. Escher employed geometry and transformations to create so many of his famous drawings.

While playing a long-term game of Goal-O Bingo, your class will practice replacing unkind words with kind ones. First, read Casey and Amazing Giant Green Shirt by Margaret Ross. Then have your class write down 25 goals they would...

To continue their study of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the beginning of the civil rights movement, class members watch the YouTube video of Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit" as an introduction to an examination of...

Shell Silverstein’s “Sick” provides an opportunity for kids to demonstrate their understanding of syllables and phonemes. The class creates a list of descriptive words used in the poem that have more than one syllable, and brainstorm how...

How do artists create the illusion of depth and distance on a flat surface? Young landscape painters explore techniques like color saturation and detail placement that create atmospheric perspective.

Students investigate issues of degradation and weathering of polymeric materials during their useful life. They evaluate photodegradable plastics and their viability as an environmental solution for litter and investigate the qualitative...

Music has been said to effect short term memory. Learners test out this hypothesis, graphing how knowledge retention in a biology classroom changes when music is played in the background. In the end, a better appreciation of the dynamics...

Redecorate a classroom on a budget. Middle schoolers rebuild a classroom after a disaster. They conduct Internet research to determine construction supplies needed and the most cost effective way to reach the predetermined results. They...

Learners will look at repeating addition examples and view how they can be written as multiplication. They use manipulatives to complete a repeating addition lesson and show it on graph paper. They also chart what they have found and...

It is key to the learning process to make everything a child with visual impairments does as tactile as possible. After reading Anne of Green Gables, the class discusses her life events in order to make a tactile time line. They...

The slope of the land is an important feature when considering the erosion that will occur. In this resource, which is part of a rain garden unit, learners calculate the slope of the proposed garden site. Even if you are not planning a...

Should identifying a tragic hero be based on a universal definition or a definition based on the morals and values of a specific culture? As part of a study of Things Fall Apart, class members read Sylvia Plath's "Colossus" and then...

Young sleuths don their trench coats, tip their fedoras, and grab their notepads to investigate one of four famous unsolved mysteries. After examining multiple primary and secondary sources related to their cold case, they propose a...

Science, engineering, and United States history? Pupils research collections of artifacts from the Smithsonian to learn about historical scientific innovations. At the end of the lesson plan, they write an essay to discuss...

Teach young historians about the historical legacy of Rosa Parks with a multi-faceted lesson plan. Pupils follow stations and use journals to explore prominent events, analyze primary resource documents, and engage in interesting...

Americans wanted to fulfill Manifest Destiny, and this pattern continued with the Mexican War. The resource specifically teaches about the Mexican War through a variety of exercises including a research project, group work, brainstorming...

What is a friend? Help young learners develop important skills for building and developing friendships with the range of activities presented in this resource. 

Students write their own fables. In this writing fables lesson, students use handheld computers to write a fable. The class designs a spreadsheet to organize common elements of fables. Students also edit each others' work.