Have fun with history and turn your kids into news reporters of the past. Each group will research, script, and deliver a news report on a historic event they are studying in class. They'll identify the main characters of the historical...

As technology advances, so does our understanding of the universe around us. Thanks to the Hubble Telescope, Mars rovers, and other high-resolution cameras, there are amazing photographs of celestial bodies, planets, comets, and more...

Introduce your class members to allegory and propaganda with a series of activities designed to accompany a study of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Readers examine the text as an allegory, consider the parallels to collective farms...

Tackle some big questions about A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle with a board game project. As learners brainstorm for and complete their board games, they consider what helps and hinders Meg on her journey and why she succeeds in...

Examine two of Sor Juana's sonnets in depth. Learners first listen to an audio recording or a reading of the sonnets and then analyze the structure and form, paying attention to elements of the Baroque and el gongorismo. Assess student...

Sor Juana, considered one of the first feminist writers and a great Latin American poet, is the topic and inspiration for this excellent activity. Use the introduction, guiding questions, and learning objectives to lead your class into a...

What a creative and engaging project to incorporate into your studies of the 1920s! Your young historians will work in groups to design a magazine discussing the political and cultural topics of the decade, each member writing one...

Planning on using primary source materials? Introduce your class members to SOAPS, a worksheet that models how to analyze and reflect on primary source materials. Readers name the document, identify the subject (S), the...

How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty...

Your learners will take a trip through history as they peruse through historic digitalized newspapers, reading real articles from such historical periods in the United States as the Temperance movement...

Do the ends justify the means? Getting a drug approved in the US is a long and involved process. But at some point out, it involves testing on humans. The ethics of such testing is the focus of a resource that uses Dr. Albert...

To enrich their study of wild animals, fifth graders create a wildlife photography exhibit, create a book about animals that live in national parks, and plan a wild animal park for the animals living in their area.

This nine-page packet, the first in the series of support materials for the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt thematic units on journeys, contains enrichment activities for learners who have mastered the basic concepts of the lessons....

The first in a series of three resources designed to accompany a reading of Kate Chopin's The Awakening provides readers with background information about Chopin, Creole culture, literary realism, and women's suffrage.

Everything you need to know about informational text features can be found in this resource. Recognizing these types of text features and how they are used in text allows readers to better understand information. Teachers...

Legos in science class? Watch your pupils fall in love with this activity. After learning to measure potential and kinetic energy, young scientists create their own ramps using Lego Mindstorm sensors and software.

Learning to recognize the importance of the features of information text (i.e., titles, subtitles, endnotes, sidebars, etc.) is the focus of a reading activity designed for middle schoolers. Learners examine how these text features...

Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...

Engage your class by showing them how silly putty and human tissues are alike. Pupils learn more about tissue mechanics by reflecting upon their experiences with silly putty. The lesson covers   collagen, elastin, and...

Young oceanographers research deep sea corals that thrive on chemosynthesis. The instructional activity focuses on the biology of the animal, preferred habitat, associations, and interactions.

Marine invertebrates offer us many new options for developing pharmaceutical drugs, such as w-conotoxin MVIIA, which is extracted from the cone snail and is a potent painkiller. The lesson encourages scholars to research various types of...

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill directly impacted an area of the Gulf of Mexico the size of Oklahoma. A marine biology lesson looks at the impact of an oil spill on the deeper parts of the ocean. Scholars download actual data collected...

A pool of brine in the deep sea can be up to four times as salty as the surrounding sea water. The deep sea ecosystem relies on chemosynthesis and the organisms that live there are often strange to us. The lesson focuses on researching...

Many have debated which came first, the chicken or the egg, but this lesson plan debates which came first, the hydrocarbons or the carbonate reef. After a discussion on deep-sea corals, scholars receive a set of questions to research and...