Did you know that 50% of all Americans can trace a relative who traveled through Ellis Island? Relive these journeys with your class and then provide sentence strategy templates for them to use to compose their own informative...

Students explore the Maasai culture. In this cultural traditions lesson, students read primary documents and story books about the Maasai in order to compare their culture to the culture of those living in a Maasai village.

Japanese Internment and World war II are the focus of a KWHL strategy used to scaffold for a reading of Journey to Topaz,  Yoshiko Uchida's story of 11-year-old Yuki Sakane and her family. Complete directions for the activity...

Fourth and fifth graders practice the skill of organizing their writing to convey a central idea by sorting 14 facts about the dogwood tree into four categories of facts. The categories, which are written on the board, are; Governmental...

Young readers listen to the story The Three Little Pigs, and discuss what abnormal characteristics the pigs and the wolf have. They relate these characteristics to personification, and practice writing sentences using personification.

Kids create leaf people out of sticks, glue, and leaves. They use their imagination to construct leaf people and then glue them onto construction paper. Tip: Extend this craft by incorporating writing. Have learners write a short story...

Sixth graders listen to story and respond with comments or questions. They brainstorm unsafe behaviors and randomly fill out templates with different risky behaviors listed on the board. They play RISKO, the Bingo type game.

First graders listen as the book, "Try It With Triangles" is read to the class. They name the geometric shapes that they see in the story and view the Shape Vocabulary Cards as they name them from the book. They then cut out the...

Students research the rainy and dry season to investigate Africa's weather. In this African weather lesson, students use the given websites to research the rainy and dry seasons of Ghana in Africa. Students then read stories about life...

This lesson plan engages learners in a variety of activities to build 1 to 1 correspondence, estimation, and problem solving skills. They discuss problem solving strategies, hear the story Ten Flashing Fireflies, compose their own...

Body decoration has been practiced for years and years, and it is often associated with a culturally significant event. To celebrate Harmony Day, children discuss the Hindu custom of henna or hand painting. They brainstorm ways people...

Before reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, take part in this thought-provoking, pre-reading activity that invites discussion about the story's theme using universal adages.

Students compare and contrast where they live in Hawaii to the Makah Indian Reservation in Neah Bay, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula, then make a Venn Diagram after hearing two stories dealing with the Trickster type characters of...

Older high schoolers use maps to study changes in society like migration, population loss, and economic shifts, and then connect events from historical events to present day mapping of their region (The resource focuses on Canada, but...

Students explore the celebration of Christmas as part of an investigation into the multicultural experiences of celebrating holidays. The story written by Richard Paul Evans, "The Light of Christmas" provides the basis for the exploration.

Get out the glue and those oil pastels its time for an art project. The class explores shape, art, and color as they draw fish with glue, let them dry, and then color them as they wish. This project would be wonderful after discussing...

Grotesques or gargoyles are wonderful subjects for stories or art projects. Here is a simple "how to" for creating a lesson about sculpting clay gargoyles. Tip: Have learners research gargoyles throughout history.

Junior archaeologists examine types of artifacts from the Bronze Age on the internet. In collaborative groups, they create a story about a ship from this period and then construct a model of the ocean floor after their ship has sunk....

If you have access to Harmonic Vision’s Music Ace Software, then this lesson plan could work for you. Kindergarteners use the video music software to place, identify, and read musical notes. They listen in and identify both high and...

C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength provides the model for using dreams in narrative writing. After a discussion of the purpose of dreams in Lewis’s tale, class members craft a story in which their dreams play an essential role.

Sixth graders brainstorm the reasons authors write, and they list their responses on the board. Students discuss each purpose they have listed.Students work independently to read the selection  "Tarantulas and Typhoid" by...

Students research the new Foreign Language Academy and other free summer programs at colleges for teens. They write features stories about the opportunities and interview deans and university officials. Students also interview school...

Teach the skill of reading silently through modeling. The teacher demonstrate how to read silently and also gives instructions on decoding skills. Individuals then read silently using  the book Polly's Shop . The teacher...

Kindergarteners and first graders discover the /u/ sound! After practicing making the sound with the funny tongue twister, youngsters use their Elkonin letterboxes to divide a set of words into their phonemes. Then pairs read Bud...