In the third activity from this unit based on the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, learners focus on using specific details from the text-to-answer questions about the habitat of bullfrogs. While reading the text, young...

Choosing sides is no easy matter, and this was certainly true for the citizens of Baltimore in the beginning stages of the Civil War. Using video, group analysis of several primary sources, and discussion, this detailed and thorough...

Get your class thinking with animations of neurons in action and explanations of how stimuli is transported and processed. This film makes an ideal introduction or review of the nervous system. The parts of the brain and what they...

Break your class in to the general structure and function of the brain. Brainiacs discuss what they know about it and create personalized brain development timelines. They also take a true-false, pre-assessment quiz to get them thinking...

What can quesadillas teach your class about fractions? More than you might think. AJ and Zoe from the StudyJams! crew use this Mexican cuisine to explain how fractions are just equal parts of a whole, defining the key terms numerator and...

Small groups of life science learners look at Allison's symptoms and discuss a diagnosis. They use a chart of illnesses and draw symptom clues from an envelope to determine what illness she has. A lesson like this gives children an...

"Fore!" All right, no one really yells this out in miniature golf, but this well-defined activity will have your charges using lots of numbers in their unique design of a miniature golf hole. Included in the activity criteria is the...

Finding patterns is an essential skill for mathematicians of all ages. Follow along with Zoe as she walks step-by-step through the process of identifying and completing number patterns. Work through the Try It! problems as a whole class...

Use the handout as guided or independent practice in drawing a reflection of a rectangle over a line. Three rectangles are provided for practice in addition to a critical thinking question.

Very simply, geometers examine a pair of rectangles on graph paper and find a translation and rotation to demonstrate their congruence. A couple of questions follow to stimulate critical thinking about other possibilities.

“So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us.” Our Town is used as the text in a Common Core exemplar that examines the dramatic and...

Why would Robert E. Lee order Pickett's Charge, an action that changed the course of the Civil War? Geographer and historian Anne Knowles uses digital technology to explain what she thinks is the missing piece in trying to understand...

The threat posed by super volcanoes is explored in a short video that reviews the destruction caused by Mount Tambora in 1815 and by Peru's Huaynaputina in 1600. Think it can't happen again? The narrator contends that the explosive...

Explore the newspaper as a unique entity with a detailed and extended unit. The unit requires learners to consider the newspaper's role in democracy, think about ethics, practice writing and interviewing, and examine advertising and news...

A thorough lesson plan takes your first grade class through Jane Yolen's beautiful Owl Moon. It crafts the unit with clear objectives, high-level guiding questions, cloze activities and sentence frames, and extension...

You don't need to be planning a museum tour to take advantage of this graphic organizer that teaches kids how to read a work of art. The student version directs viewers' attention to the content, color, and composition, while the teacher...

Set your pupils straight with spelling and sounds by using these materials for practice. Included here are three booklets and workbooks that cover just about any sound or blend you could think of!

Ever think about combining the art forms of painting and embroidery? Then this art lesson is right up your alley! Given a piece of white cloth, young artists first create a grayscale painting and then highlight certain...

Talk about a quantum shift in educational thinking. The shift in attitudes toward the fundamental purposes, the shifts in the use of assessments, the shift in the response of educators when students don't learn, the shift in the work of...

Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address provides the text for a series of close reading exercises that model for instructors how carefully crafted guiding questions can help readers think critically about what they read, thus developing...

An in-class and at-home assignment, young math stars find and list items from home and school that they think are one foot in length. Once the list is made, provide everyone with rulers to measure and find the actual lengths of their items.

Given a rectangle with specified dimensions, learners are prompted to create a new rectangle with the same perimeter, but a different area. This challenges third graders to think about perimeter and area in a new way. Each problem...

Given a rectangle with specified dimensions, third graders are prompted to create a new rectangle with the same area, but a different perimeter. This challenges learners to think about perimeter and area in a new way. Use...

No laundry or cooking dinner here: these parent functions are all about math. Every graph you could think of from basic linear functions to the hyperbolic arccotangent function are included. With 40 parent functions, the worksheet...