A reading of Tanya Lee Stones' biography of Ella Fitzgerald lets middle schoolers get up close and personal with the First Lady of Jazz. Stone recounts details of Fitzgerald's life from her early days through her experiences as a teenage...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

Find the pattern is the name of the game! Learners examine different patterns represented by numbers, shapes, and words. They must describe the pattern, predict the result in a given position, and find an equation that...

What did abolitionists have in common with those working for women's rights? How has the Native American struggle for voting rights differed from the struggles of other groups? Class members examine the 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, and 26th...

This basic, black-and-white printable is a copy of the periodic table of elements. It includes the standard element name, symbol, atomic number, and atomic weight. Across the bottom is an explanation that says for elements without stable...

Set up a 50x50 square foot area in a space at school and choose three days to go outside and observe the birds seen in a 10 minute span. The activity has learners tapping into their observation skills and creates awareness of the birds...

Intended as a follow up to the Protecting Your Drinking Water activity, young environmentalists use their assessment of the a hypothetical town's water supply to debate the installation of underground chemical storage tanks. With...

Translate transition words for your class with this handout and brief exercise. Fairly straightforward and informative, it includes sample sentences and a working link to a more complete list of transition words. There are two different...

Create clay whistles with your elementary or middle school students. The project is outlined in great detail here, complete with step-by-step photographs, finished examples, a materials list, student handouts, and a rubric. Students...

Do your hands cramp up after a long day of typing? Learn the proper and ergonomic ways to type on a keyboard with a helpful "hand" book. From relaxing elbows and wrists to massaging and stretching tired hands, the strategies in the book...

Here is a pdf file of two colorful handouts; one explains and gives examples of prefixes, the other presents suffixes.