How free are people in the United States, or in the world for that matter? The class reads and compares two articles that discuss levels of freedom enjoyed by different people around the globe. They discuss why some people have more...

Sixth graders explore physical and chemical changes. In this physical science instructional activity, 6th graders study vocabulary, discuss the changes they see in the world and look up information on chemical and physical changes....

Work on identifying text structure with this thorough activity. After studying a diagram depicting six different text structures (compare/contrast, spatial, chronological, problem and solution, cause and effect, and order of...

Display this list of commonly misspelled and frequently confused words for your learners. Though there is no interactive component, this handout is a great reference tool comparing many homophones such as sole and soul. One tip...

You'll find questions regarding government, immigration, ethnic issues, suffrage, and turn-of-the-century history to complement any lesson on Canada. There are 17 questions in need of full-paragraph answers. A great resource to finish a...

What would you do if your sister ran off with a man whom you didn't trust? Explore a scenario based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Once kids work though the problem, they read the appropriate chapters from the book and write...

Context makes everything better! Groups use real data to create models and make predictions. Classmates compare an exponential model to a linear model, then consider the real-life implications. 

Students read one of the following books: Minn of the Mississippi, Paddle-to-the-Sea, or Seabird, all by Holling C. Holling, and identify the five themes of geography as well as make a literature journal with chapter field notes. They...

Explore the idea of democratic poetry. Upper graders read Walt Whitman, examining daguerreotypes, and compare Whitman to Langston Hughes. They describe aspects of Whitman's I Hear America Singing to Langston Hughes' Let America Be...

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,"...

You'll find everything but the kitchen sink here ... or just a carbon sink. In the activity, pairs or groups of middle school learners go outside and measure a tree's circumference and height to estimate its carbon storage potential and...

Did the United States Constitution uphold the institution of slavery, or did it help to destroy it? Young historians study Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution and evaluate the rights of slaveowners as they compared to...

What is the best way to compare and contrast viewpoints on the same topic? A persuasive writing unit plan addresses targeted skills, vocabulary, instructional strategies, and suggested resources that would be perfect for developing writers.

Are you working on an Outsiders unit? Use this list of activities to deepen your middle schoolers' understanding of the novel. After reading S.E. Hinton's novel, young readers work on three required activities, including participating in...

As amazing as James Bond is, the surface tension of water does not allow him to walk on it! In this series of little lab activities, physical scientists play with the properties of water due to the hydrogen bonds and resulting polarity....

Help your learners understand the parts of speech with this color-coding activity. While reading a short passage, readers circle the nouns with blue, the verbs with red, and the adjectives with green. When they are done, scholars list...

It's important to learn how to display data to make the information easier for people to understand. A reading activity prompts kids to use context clues to answer five comprehension questions after reading several paragraphs about...

Focus on the Latin roots struct and tract with this PowerPoint, boasting plenty of practice opportunities. To help develop a definition of each root, viewers match a list of words to their pictures. Then, they compare those words to a...

Bananas are an important part of a healthy diet - but where do they come from? Third graders write an explanatory text about the origins of bananas. The bottom part of the paper includes necessary information about bananas, as well as a...

A clever worksheet on identifying things that harm the environment is here for you. Elementary schoolers read a short paragraph describing the harm that can come to the environment due to human activities. Then, they must circle five...

Study the properties of soil and water absorption with a science activity. Based on a paragraph with background knowledge on sandy soil, silt, and clay soil, third graders choose which illustration represents a bottle full of sandy soil....

Flip a coin to determine whether the probability of heads is one-half. Pupils use simulated data to find the experimental probability of flipping a coin. Participants compare the long run relative frequency with the known theoretical...

Sometimes words aren't the best way to get information across to the reader. The eighth handout in the 24-part Writing the Paper series describes different type of figures and charts to display complex information in a paper....

Students participate in a state comparisons scavenger hunt. They write down how certain states are alike and diferent. They write a paragraph on why they would move to a different state.