Model the landing of the Mars Rover using an egg. The STEM activity has pupils create a landing device for a falling egg to simulate the landing of the Mars Rover. They test their devices through experimentation to safely land the device.

Fido needs your help! Groups first learn about form and function and about the design process in a STEM activity. Then, they design a device to save a pet (stuffed animal) from a pipe.

What noise is coming from that box? Teams design and build a device that hears a noise from inside a box. Groups must complete the task within a time limit and use the STEM design process. Participants must be able to hear the sound well...

How high can you go? In a STEM design challenge, teams design and build a structure using only dowel rods and rubber bands. The goal is to build the tallest freestanding structure using all of the dowel rods. Teams present their designs...

Get the ball rolling and challenge your class to figure out how to make a ball move. The instruction segment is between two STEM activities devoted to doing just that. The first is simple and involves making a ball move from some force...

Design protection from high-speed particles. The STEM lesson plan highlights why astronauts need protection from space debris. Pupils use the design process to design, build, and test a spacesuit that will protect a balloon from a...

What is a community? Find out with a instructional activity that sheds light onto the different types of communities—school, local, and global. Scholars read informational text detailing the life of a young girl from Cape Verde and take...

Get learners excited about reading with literature circles! Small groups discuss the day's reading in various roles, including Discussion Director, Summarizer, Word Wizard, Literary Luminary, Travel Tracer, Connector, and Fact Finder,...

How does propaganda influence our vote? Through grand conversation, scholars gain information about what is and how to identify the different ways propaganda is used in a presidential election. Using their new-found knowledge, citizens...

Build vocabulary and get in the Halloween sprit with a collection of festive activities! Here, scholars take part in a holiday celebration, unearth the unknown in mystery feel-boxes, and create monster masks out of paper plates. 

After conducting research on a given scientific animal name, group members take a walk around their school and look for the specified animals in that classification. Then, they come back to their worksheets and create five creative clues...

After reading up to page 371 of Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, get insight into how Percy felt making a major decision through active discussion strategies that enable both academic and thoughtful...

Who would have thought to explore the concept of race through children's literature?  After reading Bell Hooks' picture book, Skin Again, and chapter sixteen of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee, class members consider whether skin color...

Split the class into two groups for a fishbowl discussion using of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee. The first group initiates the conversation by reviewing the important points of Chapter thirteen while group two members are listening,...

Young scholars demonstrate their knowledge of geography with this fun, collaborative social studies project. Working in small groups, students develop their very own countries, writing descriptions of their physical location, social...

Develop a system of classroom rules created by the kids, for the kids with this three-part instructional activity series on the US Constitution. After learning about the structure of the Constitution and the government it established,...

After your next group project or collaborative assignment, have your learners reflect on what it was like to work with others. They will answer questions on what parts of the process they did and did not enjoy, whether or not they were...

"Think before you speak." Make this direction more meaningful for your young learners by using think as a guide for respectful speech. This is a great poster to reference during class discussions, conflict resolutions, or whenever anyone...

Get things cooking with the first lesson in this series on the science of food. Working in small groups, young scientists make and record observations about different mystery foods. These descriptions are then shared with the class and...

Teach your charges how to become responsible digital citizens with superheroes! Start out with a brief class discussion about what acting safely, responsibly, and respectfully looks like. Next, have each pupil create their own digital...

Here's an exercise designed for the Common Core Literacy Standard L.11-12.6 that asks learners to demonstrate their ability to put together all they have learned about language. The first activity is based on a passage from Rosencrantz...