Middle schoolers study facial expressions and create a face jug. In this facial study instructional activity, students look at images of face jugs through history before drawing thumbnails of facial images. They use the coil method to...

Build visual literacy, discussion, and critical thinking skills with an innovative art lesson. Young analysts discuss the use of decalcomania, surrealism, and automatism in various contemporary pieces, discuss constructed truth, and...

Lights, shadows, action, and inquiry await your artistic scientists. They explore the way light travels, absorbs, reflects, and transmits through shadow play. They create folktale-inspired shadow puppets, explore the science of light,...

Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this activity prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...

A reading of Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County not only offers pupils an opportunity to practice their listening skills but also provides them with examples of dialectic speech. This is the gol’derndest lesson...

Your kids can identify the plot sequence of a short story, but what about an informational article? Have them examine the chronological order of events in informational texts with a lesson on the sequence of events. 

Discuss how diseases have impacted human history. Divide your class into groups and assign each group one of the following: tuberculosis, malaria, plague, cholera, smallpox, and AIDS. They read up on, complete a concept map, and present...

A study of the history of the Channel Islands, located off the coast of southern California, continues as class members conduct a mock trial to determine which group of stakeholders should have the right to claim the remains of Juan...

Fourth graders participate in role plays in order to consider how they use body language and facial expressions to convey their feelings. In this nonverbal communication lesson, 4th graders discuss the importance of paying attention to...

Fourth graders hypothesize about the difficulties they may encounter if they did not have their sense of sight, in order to establish a sense of empathy for the disabled. In this lesson on senses, 4th graders record all of the things...

Students sing, dance and play instruments that are integrated with the book, "Charlie the Caterpillar."

Students complete online research to study geography's impact on weather. For this geography and weather lesson, students research weather in their city for ten days using an online website. Students bookmark the site, enter data into a...

Students learn about and create koru art. In this cultural art lesson, students read M?ori legends and learn about M?ori koru designs. Students practice forming a koru shape, and, when ready,draw a large koru on cartridge paper using...

Students redesign a dead space in the school to create an interesting and stimulating visual environment. In this art design activity, students look at how to redesign architectural space and research ways to enhance a space. Students...

Students explore marketing techniques. In this media awareness lesson, students watch instructor-selected advertising and identify the marketing techniques used in each of them. Students then create advertisements for products.

Students explore the art of shadow puppetry. In this performing arts lesson, students study the functions of lighting in the puppet theater as they examine the transmission, absorption, and reflection of light. As a culminating activity,...

Twenty insightful questions follow a read aloud of the story, Amos and Boris by William Steig. Scholars then show what they know through completion of a cause and effect chart, reading fluency assessment, and a written...

How do authors play to people's moods? After briefly reviewing mood using a Conditional and Subjunctive Mood handout, learners practice identifying conditional and subjunctive sentences in the Montgomery Bus Boycott speech before reading...

Scholars get to know famous Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh, as an artist as well as a person. After reading personal letters and analyzing paintings, participants paint two self-portraits that represent their personality. Then, write a...

With the emphasis on incorporating more nonfiction in language arts classes the question arises about how to design activities that motivate kids to engage with informational text. How about an assignment that asks class members to...

Good books are accessible through a variety of literary lenses. To consider how the same story can be seen in different lights, groups develop a storyboard for a movie teaser that would focus on one of six concepts found in Suzanne...

Elizabeth Cady Stanton compares sins to monsters, using a metaphor to make a point about morality. Using the fifth of 14 lessons from the Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 2 series, learners analyze paragraphs 8-10 of "An Address by Elizabeth...

Save the Lofty Trees, by Leslie Mills, provides the text for a study of the roles of animals and humans in the forest. Richly detailed, the plan offers two approaches to the play: as a scenario for children to imagine what actions would...

As Nick wanders the grounds of Gatsby's mansion, he observes the behaviors of the rowdy guests and listens to the music pouring over the lawn. Bring the music of the jazz age into the classroom with Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues,"...