Build an interest and appreciation for architecture in your young learners with this fun 10-lesson art unit. Engaging children in using their five senses, the class first observes the environment around them, paying...

Can art play tricks on your eyes, and can a still painting really appear to vibrate? The second lesson in a four-part series discusses the way our beautiful brains translate visual images. It highlights the style of optical art and...

Engage young readers in using context clues with this collaborative vocabulary activity. In pairs, children draw from a deck of cards, with each card asking a question about a context involving a specific vocabulary word. After...

Young readers travel back to the time of the dinosaurs in this literature unit based on the story Dinosaurs Before Dark. Intended for use with upper-elementary special education students, this resource provides reading...

The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unit is a golden ticket for teachers looking for nicely written plans. Elementary and middle schoolers draw their impressions of characters, design and market their own candy creations, and use...

Creating a good main character is a must when writing a creative narrative or novel. Elementary aged writers create main characters for the novel they are writing. They first use themselves as a models, then create a character as a...

As part of a five-lesson unit on how television uses technology and film techniques to communicate meaning, elementary students create their own media productions that demonstrate their understanding of these concepts.

Learners take a closer look at one journalist's work on UN Peacebuilding efforts in four African nations: Sierra Leone, Burundi, Central African Republic, and Guinea Bissau. They collaborate to define peacebuilding and discuss...

Art and science come together in a instructional activity based on Flower Still Life by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. Learners classify plants and insects in the painting by color, leaf shape, size, reproduction,...

A instructional activity help scholars identify emotions through facial expressions. After a friendly puppet reads scholars a poem all about feelings, learners act out how they would feel when a specific action happens to them....

Boost observational skills and get to know the difference between deciduous, coniferous, and evergreen trees with a lesson that challenges scholars to compare, contrast, identify, sort, and draw their findings.   

Get things moving with this elementary science unit on simple machines. Through a series of nine lessons including teacher demonstrations, hands-on activities, and science experiments, young scientists learn about forces, motion,...

Help young scholars see the important role camouflage plays in the survival of animals with a fun science lesson. Starting with an outdoor activity, children take on the role of hungry birds as they search for worms represented by...

Double click that mouse because you just found an amazing lesson! This cross-curricular Ornithology lesson incorporates literature, writing, reading informational text, data collection, scientific inquiry, Internet research, art, and...

Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science lesson. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing sketches of it in...

Build your classroom community with an activity that uses apples to examine oneself and their classmates. Participants draw four large apples on blank paper then exchange them within a small group. Group members write a character trait...

Lines from Shakespeare and from hip-hop artists provide learners with an opportunity to examine the literary devices these artists use to express their ideas about love. Groups use the provided lines to craft found poems, and then the...

Thor, Loki, Iron Man, and Captain America. As part of their study of Greek and Roman gods and heroes, middle schoolers compare the characters in The Avengers to Greek counterparts. Individuals then create their own superhero,...

What is poetry? Does hip-hop qualify as poetry? Do Shakespeare's monologues qualify as poetry? Class members grapple with these questions as they examine the poetic elements and themes presented in different texts. Groups of four study...

Three activities introduce upper elementary ecologists to photosynthesis and food webs. In the first, an experiment is set up to determine how plants respond to different types of light. In the second, they connect organism cards with...

Small groups brainstorm their roles in the community. Then, individually, complete a community roles web worksheet. Peers share their completed product and extend the conversation to include the feelings and character traits that go...

To broaden their understanding of both the short term and long terms effects of the Civil War, class groups examine primary source materials and then assume the role of a family member and draft a letter to a soldier describing life at...

Investigate the growth and development of New York City with the final lesson in this four-part series on skyscrapers. Learners first explore the concept of urban growth by looking closely at a series of three paintings made of Wall...