After your class reads Neat People vs. Sloppy People and Batting Clean-up and Striking Out, provide them with this resource. Use it as a quiz or a homework assignment to assess your class's understanding of the author's...

Explore how the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation affected everyday individuals in the Civil War era. Learners are given the opportunity to read and evaluate primary and secondary source material, and then to compose a writing...

Ordering numbers just got physical! Learners practice putting numbers in sequence, both in fraction and decimal form. To begin, they line up in birthday order and discuss the difference between ascending and descending. They are then...

Spark your biology buffs' critical thinking skills by assigning these questions about Hans Krebs and his work on biochemical processes. The first question refers to a respiration lab apparatus used in class, so you will want to precede...

Immerse your class in Dickens's London and classic story of A Christmas Carol. Here, a SMARTboard presentation and WebQuest build background of the setting for the novel (or the play A Christmas Carol: Scrooge and Marley.) Learning about...

Students discover the game of chess. In this critical thinking lesson, students learn the rules for each chess piece and the game as a whole. Students use critical thinking, problem solving, logic, and reasoning skills to improve their...

Third graders participate in decision-making situations. In this social studies lesson students make connections between rules and laws and the purposes for those rules and laws. Students use critical and creative thinking skills to...

An informative list compiled with quotes, authors, and discussion questions, along with 20 out-of-the-box application ideas, make up the collection of lessons geared to spark dialogue and creative thinking about quotations. 

Help your class master the important concept of critical load. Pupils work together to build a structure using 12 playing cards. They test the critical load of the structure using pennies or paper clips.

Start by defining the word sitcom with the goal of launching a discussion. What exactly is a sitcom? How is a sitcom different from sketch comedy, drama, and reality television? Class members give examples, remember storylines...

Though often used in shows of patriotism, Bruce Springsteen's 1985 song "Born in the U.S.A." is critical of America's role in the Vietnam war and its treatment of American veterans. High schoolers analyze the song's lyrics in an activity...

You can learn a lot from a robe, especially if that robe is from the Qing Dynasty. Examine the beauty and symbolism that covers a functional and piece of clothing entitled Winter Dragon Robe. The class will consider and analyze all...

While all light travels at the same speed, each color in the visible light spectrum contains a different wavelength and frequency. Scholars determine the relationship between frequency and wavelength as they complete the activity. They...

Wicked is not just a Tony Award winning broadway musical. It also makes for a strong base to teach character education, specifically anti-bullying. Scholars listen, discuss, role play, and show what they know through a group...

Scholars read an excerpt from the short story "The Bonfire" by Kunikida Doppo as well as a nonfiction passage about handcycling. Next, they answer comprehension-based multiple-choice questions. Additionally, they respond to short-answer...

Telling young people to just say no can be difficult in a world that inundates them with messages to just say yes. A lesson on media messages encourages teenagers to analyze song lyrics and advertisements that mention drugs...

A reading of Tanya Lee Stones' biography of Ella Fitzgerald lets middle schoolers get up close and personal with the First Lady of Jazz. Stone recounts details of Fitzgerald's life from her early days through her experiences as a teenage...

Help readers learn to create their own open-ended questions for any text you are working with. Using Bloom's Taxonomy, learners begin on the lower levels and work their way up to form questions that focus on synthesis instead of simple...

Your plane has crashed in the Sahara desert. What do you do? Explore the possibilities with a role-playing activity based on Antoine de Saint Éxupery's The Little Prince. In groups, kids decide whether they would walk to find help...

There is more than one way to approach a problem. Explore the habits of mind as they relate to the methods of approaching learning, and to how young writers can develop success once they learn to foster each skill.

Every 18–24 months, nuclear power plants shut down to remove their used uranium fuel, a radioactive waste. Show learners how energy is made and used around the world and then focus on the United States' usage. Viewers then specifically...

As Flora from Flora and Ulysses drowns in her misery, she discovers a squirrel with bigger problems than her own. She saves him from the vacuum cleaner and finds out that his brush with death gave him superpowers. Scholars match...

Take a seat on the parade route with a holiday-themed set of word problems. Young mathematicians answer questions based on the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York City, including finding the average number of members in a...