Your learners explore growing patterns by describing, extending, creating, and evaluating practical pattern problems in this three-day collaborative unit. Beginning with concrete patterns and function tables to extend and...

Human fingerprint patterns are the result of layers of skin growing at different paces, thus causing the layers to pull on each other forming ridges. Here, groups of learners see how patterns and fingerprints assist scientists in a...

Analyzing the sequence of actions in dramatic stories leads to deeper comprehension of story structure. The class identifies the main actions in each section of a story and develops frozen tableau's for the identified actions of the...

Students examine Greek and Latin root words. They research the history of the English language, solve word games and puzzles, write paragraphs about the impact of Greek and Latin on the English language, and create flip chart study guides.

What does it mean to be respectful? Scholars complete a self-assessment worksheet to determine just how respectful they are. Next, they choose three items from the survey and write plans for how to improve in those areas.

As the title suggests, this packet is loaded with activities that can be used at any time. The common element in all the exercises is that they are connected to books by Dr. Seuss.

At one point, all mammals carried only two color receptors, but now most humans carry three. An informative presentation and hands-on activity demonstrate how this evolved through genetics. By participating in the activity, pupils...

Class members look again at the end-of-unit essay prompt for A Mighty Long Way. After reviewing the requirements of the essay, they use their Gathering Evidence note-catchers and color-code the evidence that matches the two questions in...

What is the initiating event? What is the protagonist's goal? What attempts are made to achieve this goal? What is the outcome? Model for your class how to map out the structure of any narrative. Readers then search for answers as the...

Good discussion questions, quizzes, and tests teach as well as assess. Readers of The Great Gatsby will learn much from the materials in a 36-page packet designed to help students prepare for the AP Literature exam. Included in the...

Here is a learning activity that incorporates a classic puzzle in mathematics. Young mathematicians are guided through a series of statements that describe rounds of pupils opening and closing lockers. The first person opens all 20...

The city of Los Angeles' 1979 Special Order 40 states: "LAPD officers shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person." After reading a fact sheet that details the history of Special Order...

Students watch as the teacher makes sounds with her hands. They think of a word to describe the sound. Students discuss the way the word sounds like the sound. They complete the "The Sound Monster Activity." Students are told that...

Pine needles are actually modified leaves. In the 16th installment of 20, young scientists explore plants. Through an analysis of leaves — shape, veins, and edges — pupils see how to classify plants based on structural features.

The third lesson of five in an eighth-grade poetry unit has young scholars comparing Shakespearean sonnets with Petrarchan sonnets. To begin, they examine the different structures of the two forms and their different rhyme schemes. After...

First graders listen as they are read a book containing exmaples of word families, they listen for rhyming words. They focus on word families, words that have rhyming sounds and share the same spelling patterns. Pupils work in small...

Students define a square and connect this information to a square root. In this square root instructional activity, students make a chart listing square numbers and their roots.

Bring a set of pre-lab, lab, and post-lab lesson plans on volcanoes to your earth science unit. Sixth graders explore the three types of volcanoes found on Earth, plot the specific locations of these volcanoes on a map, and...

Saturn's rings are made of dust, ice, and solid chunks of material. Individuals use spectrographs in this final installment of 22 lessons to determine the atmospheric elements. They analyze spectrums from Titan's atmosphere and...

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...

Don't think negatively about exponents. Young mathematicians dissect a fictional conversation between pupils trying to evaluate an expression with a negative exponent. This allows them to understand the meaning of negative exponents.

Students create a story about an unknown planet invaded by humans as a pre-reading activity for the novel, A Wrinkle In Time. They discuss good versus evil, and identify examples of the theme good vs. evil in books, film, and their own...

Fourth graders read the novel, The Eric Canal, identifying the characters and setting. They respond to daily reading by writing in journals and complete a short answer test upon completion of the novel.

High schoolers examine the history of Spanish in what is now the United States. They examine the current language status of the Hispanic population. Students are able to characterize Spanglish and Chicano English. They examine some...