What cultural concepts must readers understand in order to connect to Things Fall Apart? As part of their study of Chinua Achebe’s novel, class members research Nigeria and the Igbo culture to create a collaborative, web-based,...

Venus fly traps photosynthesize and consume insects because the soil they live in does not provide enough nutrients. Scholars analyze historical scientific experiments to learn how scientists discovered photosynthesis. From their...

Start a whole new life in a land known as the Wild Wild West! Learners analyze maps, personal accounts, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, songs, and video clips to uncover life under the Homestead Act. Using their new skills, class members role...

Teach young biologists the language of life with this series of worksheets on DNA. By working through these pages, students expand their understanding of genetics as they learn about the process of transcription and the...

An informative resource covers the event of John Brown's Raid, an event that became an important part of West Virginia history. It serves as a standalone and covers the event and John Brown's life in depth using group work, online...

An activity focused on tolerance encourages class members to consider how they might respond when they or someone else is the target of oppression and discrimination. After researching how some key figures responded to the...

Primary sources are valuable for understanding the context of historical events, but the diction and dialect in these documents can be difficult to understand. Middle and high schoolers participation in a transcription process in which...

Encourage pupils to design an election plan for the entire school. They participate in a Board of Elections, create polling rules, discuss election controversies, write questions about the issues, run the election through an online...

Help your students develop a growth mindset with a list of sample strategies for prioritizing efforts instead of results.Pupils learn how to embrace mistakes, set high expectations, and focus on process over product.

Scholars are introduced to the characteristics of a legend. They read and discuss Old Father Story Teller by Pablita Velarde. Then, in groups, they write and illustrate a poem based on one of the legends from the book. This lesson plan...

A reading of Peggy Parish's Amelia Bedelia launches a study of idioms. Groups then select several idioms, write the meaning of the expressions, draw or select images, and use GIMP or Photoshop to create an idiom book. 

Extra! Extra! Read all about past and present energy use in a classroom-made historical newspaper. Useful as a cross-curricular assignment between science, history, and language arts, the project is sure to get young journalists...

Amelia Earhart's accomplishments and strength of character extend beyond her status as one of the first female aviators in America. Elementary and middle schoolers learn about Earhart's early life and the historical context surrounding...

Just how does a case come before the highest court in the land? A graphic flow chart unpacks how plaintiffs come before the Supreme Court. Graphics include background on the nine justices and just how many cases they actually hear each...

What makes up a habitat? Use this resource to engage first graders in the exploration of desert, wetland, forest, and ocean habitats. Youngsters classify plants and animals into the four distinct habitats through drawings and cutting and...

Should countries use their militaries to stop humanitarian crises in other countries? Learners make claims, organize their reasoning, and provide evidence for their arguments with this rich resource.

Investigate the fascinating, yet terrifying phenomenon of hurricanes from the safety of your classroom using this earth science unit. Focusing on developing young scientists' spacial thinking skills, these lessons engage...

To gain an understanding of Imperialism, class members read Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden" and Mark Twain's essay, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." Groups compare these perceptions of non-white cultures with the...

There is more than one way to approach a problem. Explore the habits of mind as they relate to the methods of approaching learning, and to how young writers can develop success once they learn to foster each skill.

There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't. The lesson includes four activities in which students learn binary, convert binary to images, understand CCD arrays, and interpret...

Young scientists compile everything they have learned into a report in the fifth and final lesson in a unit on the visible light spectrum. Access to photos from observatories, telescopes, and satellites allows learners to compare...

Keep class members accountable for their own learning with a series of differentiated instruction strategies. From rubrics created by pupils to learning contracts written at the beginning of the year, the resource offers multiple ways...

Making decisions can be stressful, even for sixth graders. And even students this young have developed coping skills, some positive and some negative, to help them deal with stress. Class members are asked to identify several of their...

Two lessons explore the possibility of living on the moon. First, scholars read various scenarios to identify which careers would best transfer to life in space. Finally, pupils examine a website to locate items made for outer space,...