The power of a picture. During the events surrounding World War I, propaganda posters were widely distributed in American society to sway the emotions of its citizens. By analyzing World War I propaganda posters in the first installment...

Practice vocabulary skills with this word analysis lesson. Middle schoolers examine the roots of unfamiliar words and use their knowledge of roots to discern meaning through word analysis.

Pupils explore the meaning of the ancient Greek word aretê and the place of virtue in historical athletic competition and modern sports. They begin by reading an informational text on the goal of sports in education, and then...

Capture the hearts of your young statisticians with this real-life example of using statistics in online dating. The use of average and geometric mean are discussed in the context of creating the algorithm used to connect people.

What is a homograph? Develop your students' vocabulary with a word association tool.   Language arts classes discover what a homograph is and how it can be used as a visual thesaurus. They discover the other uses for homographs...

While reading the book Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls, the class ties together the core reading objectives, which are making predictions, comprehending new information, reading for author's purpose, independence in reading,...

Students read texts reflecting multiple cultural perspectives. 

A carefully crafted three-day lesson integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The lesson activates...

Eighth graders participate in a variety of activities to examine the meanings and roots of word derivatives and the meanings of words. Using context clues, they determine the meanings of words omitted from a passage and complete a prefix...

Students view themselves and their surroundings from different perspectives and gain insight into how others might see them, and discuss how and why they act differently when around various people. After brainstorming multiple meanings...

The sixth lesson plan in this Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle unit assesses your third graders' ability to read and understand informational text. The included assessment asks learners to take notes about the main idea and supporting...

Develop multiplication skills with your class. Youngsters will visualize multiplication as repeated addition. Then they will create a multiplication bug book and discover arrays as a strategy for multiplication problem solving....

Encourage readers to determine if Hamlet's madness is actually divinest sense. Class members analyze the words of the play before studying related texts, including T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," scenes from...

As a summative assessment for this unit on colonial trade, fourth graders listen to and read informational texts in order to demonstrate their ability to take notes, write summaries, and draw connections. Young scholars first listen as...

Looking for materials to accompany your study of Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes? Look no further! Included here is everything you need to go alongside your unit: worksheets, graphic organizers, writing assignments, an assessment,...

Explore the works of Dr. Seuss, such as Horton Hears a Who, Horton Hatches and Egg, The Sneetches and Other Stories, The Lorax, The Butter Battle Book, and Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. Each story lesson includes reading...

Young scholars explore the attributes of fables. In this literature lesson, students read several fables and identify the moral lesson, characterization, and figurative language in each. Young scholars then retell their favorite fables...

List and identify words for each part of the "Nym" family: synonyms, antonyms and homonyms. Middle schoolers place words in the correct category, then find the corresponding mate in a dictionary or thesaurus.

Students investigate Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. In this research based lesson, students compare theories of intelligences and examine the implications of using these theories in schools and society.

Pupils view images of New Deal programs to see its successes. They work in groups to create captions for the images and suggest captions that might indicate different meanings.

Learners of many ages use the Visual Thesaurus to help them understand the language of math. They work in groups to explore the multiple meanings of common math terms. Pupils come up with examples of the words in mathematical and other...

Students analyze Jack London's use of anthropomorphism to identify the importance of adaptability in life. In this literature lesson, students use the novel The Call of the Wild to identify key elements in survival. Students...

Smart, intelligent, perceptive. Here's a worksheet that asks kids to use a thesaurus (an online one, perhaps?) to find a series of synonyms for the six words listed.

What is the difference between prejudice and discrimination? Between collaborators and bystanders? Guilt and responsibility? Prompt learners to think critically about a very complex and textured topic with an innovative packet...