When your class members have completed the novel Esperanza Rising, they will be ready to write an expository essay on how Esperanza responds to events and what this says about her character. Set your pupils up for success by...

Come up with a list of requirements for this expository essay on Esperanza's character in Esperanza Rising as a class and use the list to guide class writing. Here, learners will complete the first paragraph, discuss their notes for the...

Test your pupils' reasoning skills with several activities and a quick mystery to solve. Learners watch and analyze a few video clips that demonstrate reasoning in action, practice deduction with an interactive and collaborative...

Discover relationships between linear and nonlinear functions. Initially, a set of data seems linear, but upon further exploration, pupils realize the data can model an infinite number of functions. Scholars use multiple representations...

Explore the effect of outliers through an analysis of mean, median, and standard deviation. Your classes examine and compare these measures for two groups. They must make sense of a group that has a higher mean but lower median compared...

Have your class conduct research to learn all they can about simple machines. They use the web, take notes from a video, write a script, then make a film describing various simple machines found in real life. These videos are then...

A change is coming. Pupils use unit cubes to investigate how changes in the length, width, and/or height affects volume and surface area. They extend the results to write and test predictions on the effect of changing multiple sides on...

Does writing the name of a color in a different colored ink affect one's ability to read it? Scholars design an experiment to answer this question. They collect the data, analyze the statistics, and draw a conclusion based on...

Explore business problems through mathematical analysis. The task has individuals write and graph a linear system to determine the best business model. They use their models to answer a series of questions that help to make a conclusion.

Can you graph your story? Keep your classes interested by challenging them to graph a scenario and interpret the meaning of an intersection. Be sure they paty attention to the detail of a graph, including intercepts, slope,...

How high can your pupils jump? Learners design an experiment to answer this question. After collecting the data, they create box plots and scatter plots to analyze the data. To finish the instructional activity, they use the data to...

Students design an experiment to test for the concentration of chloride in products. In this analysis of chloride concentration lesson plan, students develop and conduct an experiment to find the amount of chloride ion in a substance of...

Has media always had an influence on public policy? After researching and reading news articles written during World War I, learners understand the influence of communication and media. They discuss articles in small groups and as a...

Levitation tricks have been documented from the early 1900s, so how do they do it? Scholars learn about the force of magnetism in an attractive resource. They watch videos and design experiments to understand the strength and...

Apply the properties of exponents to expressions with negative exponents. The fifth activity in the series explains the meaning of negative exponents through an exploration of the properties taught in the previous lessons of the...

Explore a basic pattern to practice writing expressions. In collaborative groups, learners examine a contextual pattern and write an expression to model it. The task encourages groups to describe the pattern in multiple ways.

Fifth graders discover the value of trees in our society.  For this ecosystem instructional activity, 5th graders read the book, A Tree is Nice, and discuss with classmates how trees are essential to our existence due to creating...

To gain a better understanding of Hispanic heritage and culture, as well as to build informational comprehension skill, learners explore facets of Hispanic American History. They engage in a class discussion, research three facts, and...

Introduce literature circles with Roland Smith's novels. Your seventh graders will see the activity modeled as you read The Three Little Pigs together and apply the format to a Roland Smith novel of their choice. The lesson includes...

Seventh graders simulate probability experiments. Using a graphing calculator, 7th graders design, conduct, and draw conclusions from simulations or probability experiments. Students construct frequency tables and compare the...

Students use origami frogs to experience the scientific method. They define different scientific terms. Also they test a hypothesis and draw conclusions from observations to go through all the steps of the scientific method.

Explore the literary concept of theme through the The Gift of the Magi. Starting with a class discussion, the concept of theme is explored through examples from famous stories and movies. Next, the class analyzes the possible themes of...

During an inquiry-based lesson plan, scholars decide which variable to test and then design an experiment to determine the needs of producers. After two weeks, they complete a full analysis and research paper.

Explore the unique characteristics of polymers. A complete lesson begins with a presentation introducing polymers. Following the presentation, young scientists develop a laboratory plan for creating substances using polymers. They...