Young scholars explore communication. In this telephone lesson, students create a model of what they think telephones of the future will look like. Young scholars list inventions of the past that have led to current technology. Students...

Design a new organism with recyclable art materials! After learning about the coastal biome, learners brainstorm challenges that a plant or animal may face. They use their ideas to create a creature, complete with environmental...

Students work in small groups to create a game. They begin by performing a fitness activity, and discussing the fact that a game must be invented in order for people to play it. Students practice playing their game, and make refinements...

Students research the Internet for information about African-American inventors and their inventions. After collecting their data, students must build and manage information in a database that catalogs the inventions of African-Americans.

Fifth graders discover new and interesting technologies of the Civil War. In this Civil War portfolio of lessons, 5th graders analyze primary resources, develop new vocabulary, investigate websites, and create a time line of new...

Students construct a butterfly mobile. In this visual arts lesson, students use rice paper, watercolors, a coat hanger, and wax paper to create a unique butterfly mobile. Students use photographs of butterflies to construct a realistic...

Students select an instrument and create a musical composition. In this musical composition instructional activity, students invent an original piece of music that is 16 measures long. Students hum and record their pieces.

Fourth graders use regional rock art symbols or their own symbols to cooperatively create a rock art panel. They examine their feelings about rock art vandalism and discuss ways to protect rock art and other archaeological sites.

Fifth graders discuss commercials they remember seeing, and reasons they remember them. They write and perform their own television commercials designed to "sell" a compound machine.

Students use the internet to research an invention that was developed during the Industrial Age. Using a worksheet, they record all revelant information to their invention including the short term and long term affects of the product....

Students make a timeline from the late 1800's to 2000 to mark significant inventions.

Fourth graders, in groups, invent a product to sell, create a commercial for it using a stick puppet they make.

Third graders use research from a previous lesson to design their own inventions. In groups, they brainstorm a product they would like to see built and share them with the class. They must explain how each one would serve a purpose or...

Students research inventions and their role in the history of civilization. In this inventions lesson, students choose an invention from a grab bag and research information to answer the worksheet.

Fifth graders complete a variety of activities as they study the various tools and machines that have been invented throughout history that have made life easier and tasks less difficult for modern man.

In this creative thinking instructional activity, students identify and list nine of the best and most important inventions ever created. Then they list nine of the not so good inventions. Finally, students list three of their personal...

Physics fanatics will shriek over this monster-themed construction application! They design an invention with the intention of competing one of 50 missions and test it out with real physics applications. 

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...

Students discover how to determine the flavor of a jellybean using different key documents.  For this economics lesson, students discuss Virginia economics and begin an activity in which they will help decide on the what jellybean...

Young scientists study the construction of a battery through experimentation. They engage in five experiments which combine to create a thorough study of the history of batteries beginning with a model of the first battery.

"Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle?" Inspired by this quote from the award-winning novel written by Andrew Celements, this instructional activity allows children to invent...

Carlos Fuentes’s The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait and Jaspre Bark’s Journal of Inventions: Leondardo da Vince serve as models for an assignment that asks class members to create a personal journal they will use...

How does life evolve? The interactive provides a simulation based on the Game of Life invented by mathematician John Conway. Users can run the applet with the preset rules and settings or adjust them to view whether overpopulation or...

Filippo Brunelleschi's invention of linear perspective during the Renaissance was further developed by his apprentice, a young artist named Leonardo da Vinci. Now modern artists can give da Vinci's famous perspectograph a try...