Students consider toys as more than items for playing, compare and contrast inventors and toys they created, and discuss purpose of specific toys, including whether toy was created for education, financial success, or both.

The Olmec were an ancient people native to Mexico who lived from 1000-500 BC. Young artists examine the Olmec piece Seated Figure to analyze the use of body language to communicate a tone or feeling. They then use clay or play-dough...

Learners view a slide show featuring famous athletes and educational institutions that have played a part in the history of basketball. They participate in a game in which a basketball is tossed from person to person as facts and...

Class members identify bullying in contemporary texts and role play how they might change those scenes to examples of anti-bullying. They then re-define their initial definitions of bullying and discuss what they...

Introduce the basics of Thanksgiving with a language arts instructional activity. As pupils practice observation skills, vocabulary, and reading comprehension, they design paper turkeys by outlining their hands and feet and by...

Using research notes on feudal roles in medieval Europe, learners work cooperatively to write a play about one day in the life of a boy or girl in the Middle Ages.

This versatile resource from The New York Times website provides a short opinion piece on smart phones and the amount of time we spend playing games on them as well as several possible writing prompts pupils could consider in response to...

The language of and the perspective of photographs, poems, and official reports differ. After a close reading of two photographs, two poems, and a military report about the Vietnam War, individuals adopt someone's voice or something from...

What was life like in colonial America? Follow this lesson and your pupils will find out what people in colonial times did for work and for fun. Ask learners to compare and contrast the two texts and explain what the reading helped them...

Anita's iconic rooftop ode to American life in West Side Story is the focus of a lesson on immigration. As class members listen to "America," they follow along with printed lyrics, and discuss whether they agree with Anita's...

Students role play as Marco Polo to detail his travels. They include the terrains, foods, religions, people and cultures that were encountered. They write a journal entry as if they were Marco Polo detailing one aspect of his travels.

Musicals have been adapted from stage plays, novels, and movies. With The Lion King, Disney transforms its animated film into show-stopping, live-action musical theatre. The guide Disney provides to accompany a study...

Students consider the elements that make computer games compelling, then use these elements to develop game 'narratives' based on historic events.

The Diary of Anne Frank is not only a book, but a play as well, and this quiz focuses on the play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. Nineteen of the questions are multiple-choice and one is fill-in-the-blank.

High schoolers can sharpen research skills by using the Internet to find the answers to the trivia questions presented in this online worksheet. It asks questions whose answers all begin with the letter a.

If you are teaching Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, you can't afford to miss this source. An extensive list of ideas outlines numerous discussion topics, writing prompts, comprehension questions, oral presentations, and projects. Have class...

When choosing what foods to eat, there are a lot of factors to consider. To help make the decision a little easier, young learners work in small groups developing short plays, stories, or advertisements that address the different issues...

Two lessons focus on making a beat. Using popular African American music of its time, scholars listen and analyze the rhythm then recreate it with hands drums, and cups. 

Whether you are viewing a landscape painting of a farm, examining a still-life portrait of a bowl of fruit, or reading a descriptive poem about cultivating food, you can't deny that agriculture plays a major role in visual and language...

Stories are passed down orally in many cultures. Learn about the ways that storytelling can shape a society with a reading passage about Native American folklore and myths. After they finish reading, kids complete five reading...

Use your tablets to participate in a culture-sharing project with a class in a foreign country. Your class can communicate and share ideas with a class in another country, swapping information regarding language and culture. Together you...

Lead your class in a discussion about how they believe money influences politics. After reading "Go Ahead, Try to Stop K Street" from the New York Times, they evaluate the claims in the article about the current lobbyist scandal in...

Bingo! Find five in a row with a set of fun and creative bingo graphic organizers. The sheets feature shapes such as leaves, monkeys, dinosaurs, fire trucks, as well as symbols for Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's Day.

Students inquire about the lives of the First Ladies in our country. In this First Ladies lesson, students build knowledge about the contributions of First Ladies and how their childhood made them the person they are. Students do a play...