Do your actions reflect your values? Scholars examine their day-to-day activities versus their passions during the eighth installment in a series of 12 character-building lessons. After defining their values, participants create...

Young learners will love this fun weather activity that incorporates math, science and writing. Each member of your class gets a turn becoming a meteorologist! At the end of recess, the two chosen meteorologists met the teacher at a...

Begin each day with a warm-up that has ELLs focusing their minds on a skill that will be taught that day. Focusing on verbs, each daily lesson reinforces study and self-management skills, helps learners become proficient in working with...

After reading Chicken Soup with Rice, by Maurice Sendak, incorporate some of these great extension activities into your lesson plan. Ideas include focusing on knowing the months of the year, or studying the illustrations and how...

A unit designed for kindergarteners builds letter-sound correspondence in preparation for reading. Over four weeks, young scholars build proficiency in recognizing and matching the sound of 9 letters. They take that knowledge to read a...

First graders participate in skills practice with 32 lessons focusing on sound-spelling correspondence—sound combinations, consonant digraphs, double letter sounds, tricky spellings, and words. Lessons begin with a warm-up, review and...

Fifteen lessons make up a unit that focuses on letter-sound correspondence. Beginning readers examine letters and their sounds. Scholars complete a review, an engaging activity, watch teacher modeling, and practice concepts. Lessons...

Gong hei fat choy! Celebrate Chinese New Year with a variety of activities that introduce learners to the Chinese myth of the race that determined which animals earned their place the zodiac.

Study skills, time management skills, and test taking-skills are important attributes for both the classroom and the real world. Focus on these learning skills in a lesson that reviews how to be a good student and make better grades.

Enhance a reading of the Caldecott Medal-winning children's book Joseph had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback with this collection of learning activities. Starting with general background information about the book and author,...

A unit covers many aspects of the Civil War. Over six weeks, fifth graders delve deep into the history of slavery, the Civil War—before, during, and after—Abraham Lincoln, women's contributions, the Emancipation Proclamation, and...

This activities in this packet, the second in the series of support materials for the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt thematic units on animal habitats, are designed specifically for English language learners.

Looking for ideas for your Lunar New Year celebration? Check out an interdisciplinary unit of study that includes lessons in counting, calligraphy, culture, geography, literature, art, and music. Kung-hsi Fa-ts' ai! (May you...

There are an average of three human fatalities by bears in North America every year, which is low when you compare it to the 26 killed by dogs and the 90 killed by lightning annually. The lesson encourages researching human-bear...

Bring Benjamin Franklin to life in the classroom with a set of five activities. Discover the type of person he was and his accomplishments through a study of his inventions and comments about life virtues. 

After completing an online activity about the Mayflower, scholars draw a picture about what they know of the Thanksgiving holiday, including a one-sentence summary. A reading of If You Were at the First Thanksgiving by Anne Kamma is...

The words of Henry David Thoreau on Civil Disobedience seem particularly relevant today, as are his writings and those of other transcendental thinkers who ask what it mean to live deliberately and what are the responsibilities of...

Scholars read, analyze, and evaluate argumentative writing. Discussion about arguments of mass incarceration evolves from The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Learners participate in group discussions and...

Capture the engagement of your young mathematicians with a collaborative graphing activity. Using a deck of zoo animal picture cards, students select a picture from the deck, record the chosen animal on a graph,...

"Let's Get Real," a documentary about cyberbullying, is the cornerstone of a curriculum guide intended to help instructors design an anti-bullying unit for middle school classes. Packet with suggestions for how plan the unit,...

A unit focuses on the Civil War. Second graders follow along with an informational reading about the war—why it started, how it ended, and essential individuals such as Harriet Beecher Stow, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, Ulisses, S....

A read-aloud anthology closely examines human impact on the Earth while boosting reading comprehension skills. Through stories, scholars examine the concepts of natural resources, pollution, garbage, and recycling and brainstorm...

Over four weeks, fourth graders study King Arthur and the Round Table, retold by Alice M. Hadfield. Fifteen lessons take pupils through each chapter, complete word work, and the writing process to draft paragraphs, sentences, dialogue,...

The final lesson in a skill-based series focuses on setting goals and making checklists. Class members discuss what it means to set realistic goals and practice making lists to manage their time effectively.