Go around the unit circle and create triangles. Pupils move a point around the unit circles to visualize the triangle associated with the angle in standard position. The three main trigonometric functions are defined in terms of the legs...

“Anyone who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.” Mary Alice, the fifteen-year-old narrator of A Year Down Yonder, is forced to leave Chicago and spend a year with her Grandma Dowdel in a small rural...

Acting as journalists on a team to determine the most influential city-state of Renaissance Italy, your young historians will research, discuss, and compare the rise of Venice, Florence, and Genoa, and their influence in shaping a...

Fourth graders understand the benefits of recycling. In this recycling literacy lesson, 4th graders read an article and identify the main idea. Students understand the process of transfer to the landfill and discuss how recycling helps...

This story is bound to motivate your class. Learners read a story called Elena by Diane Stanley. The story is about a young woman who marries for love but is soon widowed during the Mexican Revolution. She takes her children to...

Third graders discover how to read sentences in a paragraph and know the main idea. For this main idea lesson, 3rd graders read paragraphs, underline the first and last sentences and determine the main idea. Students do guided and...

Calling all experts! Using the educational resource, pupils work together in small expert groups, reading an article about the 2010 Haiti earthquake. As they read, they record two main ideas and supporting details from the text.

Visible Thinking Routines are designed to help learners deepen their understanding of what they are learning and enable them to communicate their understanding of concepts to others. Individuals adopt one of these routines to use to...

As part of their study of the history of the Channel Islands, class members craft an informational article to post on a bulletin board that features the Chumash ancestral tradition of tomol paddling.

Code red! Learners read an informational article about the Red Cross, discussing the gist of the text in small groups. On a three-column note catcher, pupils take notes to show how the Red Cross functions as a multinational aid...

What tools do archaeologists and anthropologist use to learned about what life was like in the past. After watching West of The West's documentary Once Upon a Time that details how scientists use artifacts to establish a...

There's more to newspaper articles than meets the eye. Scholars learn the different features of a newspaper article, including headline, byline, subheadings, etc. Pupils circle the features in an article as the teacher discusses their...

Using a Chinese-English phrase book from the late 19th century, learners view a glimpse of life on the frontier for a Chinese immigrant. They work in groups and on their own to analyze and summarize the content of various phrases, given...

Work together for the higher good. Scholars look at paragraph 10 in the "Atlanta Compromise" speech in which Washington pledges African American cooperation. Readers determine the connection between two central ideas and how they build...

Enhance and extend instruction of "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin with one or all of these ideas. You might want to cover characterization and summary, or improve understanding of context clues and irony. You can cover any...

Designed for teachers, this resource provides an overview of Pearl S. Buck's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Good Earth. Information about the organizational pattern of the story, issues and themes addressed, historical background on...

Master a well-organized thesis statement with a short activity for a persuasive writing unit. Young writers read five different introductory paragraphs about various topics, find the main ideas addressed in each thesis statement, and jot...

Kids who take the Regents Exam really need to know a lot of information. This is a wonderful exam review tool that includes 26 pages of questions, charts, and suggested readings to help upper graders pass the test. It focuses on all...

Determining a theme or central idea is greatly emphasized in the Common Core standards. Target that skill though big metaphors and central symbols in Pam Muñoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising. Help your class reach the standard through...

Upper graders read the book Holes as a class or by themselves. In groups, they identify symbols and discuss how they are connected  among the many plots in the story. They create a timeline in which they sequence the main...

Let's eat! Scholars read pages 24-25 of The Inuit Thought of It to discover the foods eaten by the Inuit. They sketch a visual gist of the section in their journals and write a summary paragraph about the text.

Can I persuade you? Learners discuss the things they might say when trying to persuade someone under various circumstances. Groups of pupils first receive Basic Persuasion Techniques cards to sort into categories. They end the...

Ninth graders research the average temperature and precipitation of a prairie region to determine the type of climate it is, and how it differs from other biomes. They examine the types of adaptions animals have made to live in the...

Students read a book.  For this story elements lesson, students share their favorite food, predict what the story will be about and discuss how they would feel if they got to eat their favorite food everyday.  Students read the...