You'll need to be a little tech savvy to teach this music instructional activity. Pupils will attempt to play along with an accompaniment piece you've created using music software. They will be assessed on their performance and ability...

Improve class understanding of colonial times by reading an informational text and filling out the accompanying graphic organizer. Class members work with a partner to read, take notes, make inferences, and synthesize information.The...

Are all disasters natural? Scholars reread Earthquakes! to determine what classifies these events as a natural disaster. They label earthquake facts as N for natural or D disaster to support their ideas. They then discuss academic...

The art of writing a letter has not been lost to email and texting! Teach kids how to format a friendly letter with a presentation about the parts of a letter, as well as prompting them to write a letter about their favorite holiday.

What was life like in colonial America? Follow this lesson and your pupils will find out what people in colonial times did for work and for fun. Ask learners to compare and contrast the two texts and explain what the reading helped them...

A neat Presidents Day activity, this lesson provides a culminating learning experience for upper elementary aged learners. After analyzing George Washington's, "A Display of the United States of America," your learners will conduct...

What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...

It's time to party like it's 1899! Incorporate a research-based celebration of the Victorian Era into your unit on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. After learners read the novella or view a production of the play, they craft a...

As a summative assessment for this unit on colonial trade, fourth graders listen to and read informational texts in order to demonstrate their ability to take notes, write summaries, and draw connections. Young scholars first listen as...

Fourth graders view examples of help-wanted ads as they plan and create their own writing in the fourteenth instructional activity of this unit on colonial trade. The engagement of the class is captured when the teacher shares an actual...

In instructional activity 13 of this unit on colonial trade, young researchers learn about apprentices as they prepare to write help-wanted ads for the specific trade they have been researching. To begin, the class listens closely as the...

Students use a variety of linked sites to research information about student inventions and contests that are available for them. They research an invention they would like to see become available. They communicate their results to their...

Should the game go on or not? An engaging lesson asks small groups to make a decision using weather data. After analyzing a map, an updated forecast, and radar information, groups have to decide whether to cancel a baseball game. They...

Eugenics philosophy takes survival of the fittest to a whole new level. With a research-focused lesson, young scientists examine the history of the eugenics movement and its impact on society. Pupils engage with a video clip, primary...

To conclude a study of the French Revolution, young historians adopt the voice of critics of Napoleon Bonaparte and lay charges against him. They then craft a memoir in Napoleon's voice that details his motives and what he sees as his...

There's no need to run around trying to plan a unit for the book Maniac Magee, the work has already been done for you. Through a series of whole class, small group, and independent lessons and activities, students practice...

The final instructional activity in the 21-part series on climate change focuses on energy solutions to the consumption problem. Using data specific to their school, pupils make recommendations, follow up on actions, and carefully...

Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading...

Learners determine the main idea of a timeline on pages eight and nine of the text Promises to Keep. They use the timeline to complete a Main Idea and Details note catcher and then share their thoughts with the class. To finish,...

After reading the section about medicine and healing in The Inuit Thought of It, leaners determine what they feel was the most important resource to surviving in the Arctic environment. They support their opinions with details from...

The class is on the hunt. Scholars read pages 22-23 of The Inuit Thought of It about different hunting techniques of the Inuit people. They sketch a picture of the gist of the section and then complete a web that shows the...

Discover that Kenyan children aren't much different from your young scholars as they read Kelly Cunnane's story For You are a Kenyan Child. This story is an excellent resource for vocabulary in context, and introduces new words...

Railways not only cross the US, but they are also intertwined with the history of America. Using a timeline format, individuals explore the connections between major events in American history—such as the Civil War—and the rise of the...

Close your colonial America unit with a performance-based assessment. Class members will show their proficiency in several skills including using details to back up inferences, determining the meaning of words in context,...