Before your class reads the book James and the Giant Peach, check out this very handy set of learning activities. The reading guide provides you with several excellent ideas for building vocabulary related to the text and reading...

As a journalist, would you publish everything you heard or saw? Discuss the ethics of journalism with a lesson from PBS. Young reporters imagine themselves to be the editor of their school's newspaper, and as they read five scenarios,...

Scholars explore the relationship between cipher keys and passwords and as they learn more about the Vigenere cipher and continue to read from the book Blown to Bits in the seventh lesson of the series. They conduct an activity where...

After reflecting on jobs people perform in the present day, scholars discuss what they believe jobs would have been like in Colonial Virginia during the American Revolution. Small groups then perform a jigsaw using informational packets....

The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Confederate states. The Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery in the United States. However, neither document defined freedom. The second lesson in the Reconstruction Era series examines...

Young historians investigate how sexism impacted the 2020 United States presidential election. They examine media coverage of the six women candidates, engage in a four-corners debate reacting to statements about gender and the...

The fourth instructional activity in the series of 16 asks researchers to analyze an exchange of letters between John and Abigail Adams for what they each valued in letter writing.

Life may not be fair but working conditions should be. Scholars research working conditions at Wegmans by studying the company website. They complete a working conditions anchor chart and discuss their findings in a think-pair-share...

Can you put that in writing? Scholars work with a partner to write a practice claim before writing their own claims. After writing their claims, learners share with class using a Concentric Circles activity.

Teamwork makes the dream work. Pupils participate in a peer critique process, using forms to offer constructive advice about each other's storyboards. Next, scholars revise their storyboards based on the feedback, and then share their...

After reviewing their resources from the unit, scholars participate in multiple group discussions with a World Café activity. During the discussions, they share ideas about their focus questions pertaining to Canada's natural resources...

Use this economic activity to focus on writing summaries of informational text. First, middle schoolers define common economic terms used to describe news about the economy. They closely read news about the federal budget deficit and...

How can acknowledging opposing viewpoints reinforce one's argument? Use this New York Times lesson to study consumerism and the environmental impact of new products. After reading the article "Whether a Hummer or a Hybrid, the Big...

Investigate the future of the presidency in the wake of the House of Representatives' vote to impeach President Clinton. The class brainstorms both sides of the argument, reads and discusses an article, then analyzes and writes a journal...

Creative projects are a great way to engage your class and can be a fun way to assess mastery! Learners create brochures and postcards that might have been created by and for travelers to ancient Mayan cities. They read and discuss the...

Critical thinkers compare the impact of visual versus aural perception in how they comprehend artistic intent. They consider the meaning of a set of pop lyrics first by reading them, then by listening to them orally, and finally viewing...

Create a creature using some of the characteristics of a real animal. Second graders will read a book from the "Froggy," series by Johnathan London to learn about the characteristics of frogs. After discussing and recording various...

Lead a web search for information on writers and discuss the craft of purposeful writing as a class. Your students investigate "pourquoi tales" which are "why" stories. and then write their own examples of pourquoi stories to share in a...

High schoolers read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and then research countries which have had human right violations.

Working in groups or individually, learners study images of important events that occurred at, or directly affected, the White House, and share their findings of a specific event. They then post the image of their event on a...

One instructional activity in a series on sexually transmitted diseases, this activity is a good review about HIV/AIDS. Five main points in this instructional activity direct small groups of learners to read and present their...

For those seeking a spiritual education this lesson plan on God's plan for humanity may be highly beneficial. Each group will read a story then discuss the qualities of each story that show the manifestations of God. This lesson plan...

Color, light and shadow, the placement and size of objects. These are some of the tools artists used to tell their stories. Model for learners how to read a painting by closely examining these features. The richly detailed packet...

And then what happened? Class members engage in a series of activities that model for them how to read the story in a painting. Participants respond to questions that ask them to closely examine the elements in William Glackens'...