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...

Middle schoolers will sing the praises of this music program. The resource, designed as an overview for music instructors, is loaded with ideas, activities, and links. Not a sour note in the packet. 

Students explore how conflict resolution techniques can be used to resolve difference of opinion, both on a global and local scale. Students write in a journal about conflict using a phrase from the article as a starting point. ...

Students participate in a shared reading of Steven Kellogg's, Johnny Appleseed and discuss the meaning of folktales and legends. They watch a video of the same story for comparison purposes. They journal about their favorite folktale and...

Seventh graders explore psychology by writing reflections about quotations. In this human behavior lesson, 7th graders read a list of famous quotes about trust by men such as Benjamin Franklin and William Shakespeare. Students complete a...

Students evaluate Lincoln's impact on American History. In this Civil War instructional activity, students view a film clip of writings about Lincoln. Students take notes and compare how the writings define his legacy. Students write...

Students identify secondary colors. In this visual arts lesson, students predict what color will be made when two colors are mixed. Students create their own painting using secondary colors and write about their painting in their...

Analyze point of view and how it affects a literary work with this lesson. Middle schoolers create a written piece that focuses on point of view. They review the literary term "point of view," and explore examples of the term in text....

Your parents were both in different countries. You were born in the US. Documents and application forms ask you to identify your racial or ethnic classification. Which box do you check? Class members collect documents...

Teams select a society to investigate and create a chart comparing and contrasting the status of girls in that society with their own. They then craft and illustrate a personal narrative written from the point of view of a girl living in...

A virtual field trip takes enthusiastic travelers to the pyramids of Giza. Using Google, scholars explore the grounds of the ancient pyramids found in Egypt then complete three worksheets: a photo analysis page, a reflection sheet, and a...

The final session in a sequential, three-activity sculpture study designed by the education staff of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has class members using the criterial they developed to critique each others' symbolic sculptures.

Extend learning through summer with these activity ideas! Individuals can choose one or all nine of the activities, which range from a summer reading goal to an examination of local insects (with accompanying story prompt). See the...

Readers of Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry are introduced to the Question Answer Response Strategy (QAR) as a way to increase their engagement in and comprehension of the novel.

Learners access oral histories that contain slave narratives from the Library of Congress. They describe the lives of former slaves, sample varied individual experiences and make generalizations about their research in journal entries.

Eighth graders read about and reflect upon a variety of events that occurred during World War II. They conduct research on the Holocaust and Anne Frank's life, the attack on Pearl Harbor, American life during this time and the...

High schoolers compare and contrast the genres of poetry and hip-hop. They view a poetry slam and write about it in their journals. Learners view a Lauryn Hill music video and respond to it in their journals. They compare and contrast...

Here's a formal plan for what many effective teachers already do: Provide a week's worth of aphorisms and have learners choose one to write about in their journals each day. They reflect on the meaning of each aphorism and project how it...

Delve into the journey of Lewis and Clark using this lesson on Missouri. After sharing books on Lewis and Clark's journey across the United States, pupils discuss the descriptive language used in their writing, and come up with their own...

Students imagine they are taking a trip around Sweden. They create a nature journal for their trip including the description of the landscape, climate, animals and plants. They are to give details to make it seem real. Students may use...

Second graders use literature journals and discussion groups to summarize and improve their reading comprehension. In this reading skills lesson, 2nd graders discuss animals they've loved and read the story The Girl Who Loved Wild...

Discuss and generate blogs in this technology lesson. Middle and high schoolers explore examples of blogs and create their own blogs. Use this lesson throughout the year to reinforce concepts from your language arts class (or any class)....

Explore ancient Rome through reading The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare. Readers activate prior knowledge by examining objects that relate to the story and predict the significance of the items. Their curiosity is aroused...

Here is a great lesson plan on recognizing events and themes in a story. Students read chapters from a chosen book and then fill out a graphic organizer to further explore the purpose of the chapter. They write the events, themes,...