Christopher Columbus: hero or villain? Prepare class members for the debate with activities that asks them to think critically about how history is reported.

What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...

How does recognizing the author's purpose help you draw conclusions about a topic? Using two articles (both are attached), learners brainstorm why each author wrote each article. Are their purposes similar or different? Learners use a...

Young readers compare and contrast digital and print versions of tall tale text. The resource includes a character analysis in which pupils compare and contrast traits, and make inferences about what the characters do and say. They...

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...

Give your class a taste of the Common Core with a practice test that includes both literary and informational reading passages. Pupils respond to related multiple choice questions and longer written response questions. See the...

Is it hubris that drives the creative process? Is it the desire to be remembered long past death? An interactive asks readers of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Percy Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" to consider what this wife and...

Times change; behaviors that were once considered acceptable can be seen in a very different light. Middle schoolers revisit the legacy of George Washington in a three-day lesson plan that uses primary sources to reveal Washington as a...

William Wordsworth's poem "Lines Written in Early Spring" lets learners sharpen their observation skills. Class members first closely examine the image "Flowers in Front of an Abandoned House in Demerino, Russia," listing what they...

Linear measurement is the focus of this math lesson. Youngsters work in groups to build towers with blocks. They build towers represented on index cards and determine how many blocks taller one tower is.

Water covers more than 70 percent of Earth's surface. Scholars learn about both freshwater and saltwater biomes in a simple presentation. They compare and contrast the differences in oxygen levels, food sources, and sunlight to better...

First graders explore how earthquakes release energy in a set of hands-on activities. During the pre-lab, they discover how energy from an earthquake releases waves through the earth using a water-filled cup and...

Modern readers apply classic themes to Victor Hugo's masterpiece, Les Miserables. After they discuss tricky vocabulary and plot elements from the novel, class members compare Hugo's written work to a stage or film adaptation of the...

Words matter! That's the big idea behind an activity that asks scholars to replace words in FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech with synonyms. They then listen to a recording of President Roosevelt's address and compare his version to their own.

Memories of and interpretations of history change—that's the key takeaway from a instructional activity that has young historians compare the story of the Reconstruction Era as told by the historians of the Dunning School to the view of...

Vivandieres and cantinieres, nurses and soldiers, loyalists and unionists. A primary source set provides young historians an opportunity to investigate the many roles women played in the United States Civil War. 

The Buttonhook by Mary Jo Salter is the focus of a unit that explores the immigration experience to Ellis Island. First, scholars bring in an artifact that represents their heritage. A group-exercise allows them to share and discuss...

Young scholars study four essential propaganda techniques: Simplification, Exploitation, Exaggeration, and Division (S.E.E.D.). Individuals select an example of propaganda from the past and present then compare how the key elements have...

Should Juneteenth be recognized as a national holiday? To prepare to take a stance on this question, young historians first analyze the Emancipation Proclamation and compare it to Lincoln's first Inaugural Address. Scholars then read an...

Propaganda is often used to shape public opinion. Scholars investigate the persuasive techniques used by the pro- and anti-suffrage movements. Groups compare how these devices were used during the suffrage movement with how the same...

Your young historians will learn all about the pharaohs, pyramids, and gods of ancient Egypt with these informational text worksheets, each of which are accompanied by hands-on, follow-up activities.

Physicists Herman Branson and Tannie Stovall provide young scholars with two very different perceptions of the status of African American physicists in the 1960s. After reading and comparing the bios of these two men, class members read...

Six lessons, extension activities, and an assessment make up a series of lessons curated to reinforce the concept of classifying animals. Each informative and interactive lesson attributes to the knowledge of the seven levels of...

Urban communities are the focus of a series of lessons created to meet specific needs using differentiated instruction. A pre-assessment designates scholars into three groups based on their ability level. Small groups take part in...