Middle schoolers learn what respect means to them and their classmates with the opening exercise in a series of confidence-building lessons. Participants list people they respect and why they respect them. They generate a definition,...

The fourth instructional activity in the Confidence Building module asks participants to think about what they value and how these values influence their decisions. Class members engage in activities that help them identify what they...

Money? Beauty? Education? The final lesson in the Confidence Building module encourages middle schoolers to consider the power they have to determine the course of their lives. After investigating different forms of power, participants...

Engage young mathematicians in developing their basic arithmetic skills with these great hands-on activities. Using Unifix® cubes to model a variety of single digit addition and subtract problems, children build a basic...

Interviews can be so stressful. How does someone stay calm and confident in the interview hot seat? Senior job seekers get acquainted with common interview questions during the fifth of six career and college readiness lessons....

Entangle your life science class in learning with this collaborative food web activity. Using pictures of the plants and animals native to a particular ecosystem, young biologists work in small groups to construct visual...

Solving systems by substitution can be a challenging topic in algebra I. Here is a lesson plan that builds on students' understanding of intercepts to begin the process of substitution, and all work is reinforced graphically to...

Should bottled water be sold in schools, or should they only provide tap water? The summative unit in the six-part series encourages scholars debating this topic. The lessons teach how to build an argument, how to gain background...

As learners engage in the five hands-on and collaborative learning experiences in this unit, they will work on developing a sense of identity and acceptance of self, extending their social skills, and building positive self-esteem.

After a instructional activity like this one, your class won't hesitate to negotiate! Pupils pair up and negotiate opposing sides of a conflict during the ninth installment in a 15-part series. Once they determine their wants and needs,...

War-torn Kosovo is experiencing another crisis—thousands of broken-down cars clogging the damaged highways, making travel impossible. Which local auto shop owner will get the contract to clear the road for progress? After some research,...

Can literacy get any more fun than this? Learners not only have fun, but gain confidence as well when presented with familiar text in another language. Select books, songs, poems, even recipes written in another language, and using the...

“What is the theme of this story?” Now there’s a question all pupils dread. Rather than encountering a sea of faces that look like they were painted by Edward Munch, face a classroom filled with smiles and confidence. Show your readers...

Reader's Theater is a great way to build fluency, intonation, and dramatic flare. The class reads the theater piece, "The New Friends" paying attention to how they express emotion and feeling as they read. They discuss the use of plot,...

Build vocabulary, fluency and confidence in your French speakers by having them participate in some of these engaging activities. Several suggestions are given, but you will have to design the actual lesson yourself.

The fifth installment in a writing unit that culminates with a Hyperstudio illustrated group story project, this plan is ripe with ideas for ways to design group writing projects for elementary writers. Use the whole unit as a base from...

Build your learners' self-esteem with a series of lessons that focuses on their identity and observation of the world around them. Applicable to many different subjects and lessons, the resources guide kids through the process of...

First graders work together to sort, categorize, and order collections of objects through activities that help build number sense. 

Be 100 percent confident who has the most and by how much. Pupils use percentages to help make the comparisons by finding what percent one quantity is of the other. They also determine the percent differences between the two...

Pupils build confidence working with percents as they work several types of percent problems to increase their fluency. The resource contains two sets of problems specifically designed to build efficiency in finding solutions of basic...

Build on your learners' confidence in quick addition as they discover strategies to add tens to two-digit numbers. After reviewing counting by 10's, they discuss tactics to add multiples of 10 to other numbers. They visualize how to...

"What is the theme of this story?" The very question can spark fear in the minds of readers and incinerate confidence. Here you will discover an exercise that shows how writers use the tools of setting, plot, conflict, and...

Build young scholars' confidence in analyzing art and poetry with a lesson that first asks pupils to list details they notice in Edouard Vuillard's painting "Garden at Vaucresson" and then to describe how the painting makes them feel....

The third instructional activity in the Building Confidence module focuses on healthy habits. Middle schoolers engage in activities that underscore the need for a healthy diet, daily exercise, and a good night's sleep. They create...