John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum
Picture It: JFK in High School
Elementary schoolers learn about young John F. Kennedy. After a teacher-led discussion about his high school years, pupils examine a photograph of Kennedy and four of his friends taken on the grounds of the Choate School in Connecticut....
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Map Coordinates: Monkey Map
Here's an engaging, meaningful, and clever lesson on map skills for elementary schoolers. Pupils combine story writing with mapping skills to create an original piece of work. They utilize a worksheet embedded in the plan to guide them...
Teaching Tolerance
In Our Own Words: A Story Book with a Purpose
Academics turn into storytellers in an engaging activity on activism. The activity focuses on promoting social change in local communities with stories. Young historians plan a storybook to target a specific audience and social issue and...
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Place Value for Decimals
Are your fourth graders having problems with decimals? Help them identify the place value of various numbers. Here, they describe what happens to the value of different numbers, as well as select numbers with given values in the tenths...
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Poems: calligrams
Have fun with shape poems! First and second graders write calligrams that add to the meaning of their poems. Great for your poetry unit or if you want to combine poetry and art lessons.
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Writing Novelettes
Students practice their writing techniques by creating a novelette. In this creating writing instructional activity, students brainstorm and decide on a topic they would like to expand upon in order to create their own novelette....
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Cherokee Leaf Printing
Young scholars investigate their local creeks and forests and practice identifying trees. For this ecology identification lesson, students utilize a pad and pencil while on a field trip near their school and describe their trip while...
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Northwest Coast Indians: Spring and Summer Salmon
Here is a fabulous lesson about the cultures of the Northwest Indians. Through an exploration of a story about the Salmon People, learners study the practice of harvesting salmon and the cultural importance of salmon to the Northwest...
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What A Pair! A Cross Grade Writing Activity
What a pair! Older pupils interview younger ones and use what they learn to write a short, illustrated storybook that features the youngster as the main character. The youngster responds with a thank-you note in which they identify their...
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History - Great Americans Lesson Plan
Students select and read biographies of great Americans, and develop four-paragraph reports on how these Americans contributed to our country.
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Step Into the Past: Change and Growth in Arkansas
The concept of change over time is presented in this history lesson. In it, learners discuss how some things stay the same over time, while other things change. Teams of students research and create a timeline of important events that...
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Whoever You Are
Students examine cultures, traditions, and feeling throughout cultures. In this cultural lesson, students use literature, maps, and cultural information to examine how people have universal feelings despite their different cultures and...
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To Whom It May Concern! Writing for a Variety of Audiences
Elementary learners write friendly letters with the same subject to two contrasting readers or audiences. They choose words and phrases that will be the most effective for the audience they are trying to reach. They read both letters and...
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Fall Collage
Students create fall collages using digital images, clip art or downloaded images, and the software program Adobe Photoshop in this Art instructional activity for the elementary classroom. The instructional activity involves the use of...
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All Aboard
Explore the U.S.S. Nevada. Researchers use primary sources, secondary sources, children's books and websites to study the naval ship. Their study commences with a class alphabet book on the ship. Intended to be part of a instructional...
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Road To Roota
Did you know that there are comic books that can help learners discover economic concepts like supply and demand. The format of this lesson is highly engaging and enables them to discover how economics can be an exciting field of study....
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Differences Between Fiction And Non-Fiction in the Library
Young scholars examine the differences between fiction and non-fiction books in the library by discussing kangaroos. They distinguish between facts about kangaroos, and using their imaginations and imagining what they would do with pet...
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Give Thanksgiving Art Lessons a Festive Focus
Take a step away from handprint turkeys with thanksgiving art lesson plans that explore gratitude, celebrations, and traditions.
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Dewey Decimal Game
Engage all the upper elementary classes in your school in a game to learn Dewey Decimal Classification. On 5 or 6 consecutive visits to the library, teams from each class learn how the system works, locate books in each category, and...
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Monster Descriptions
Monsters take center stage! Elementary schoolers are assigned to write a descriptive paragraph by a toy company to help in designing a new monster for their toy line. One student composes the paragraph, another uses that to create a...
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Antonyms, synonyms and homophones
Shed light on what antonyms, synonyms, and homophones are. For this lesson, upper elementary schoolers create pairs using an antonym, a homophone, and/or a synonym. Then they play an antonym matching game.
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Geo-Class Mapping My Neighborhood
Students create a map of the school and surrounding neighborhood. In this mapping lesson, students discover their school's location and learn about its past. Students use math skills and the steps in the design process to complete the...
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Plagiarism
Don't get caught plagiarizing! Before starting your research unit, use this lesson to help your young writers identify plagiarism. The truth is, many kids don't even realize when they're doing it! They practice citing sources when...
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Dewey Decimal System
Students examine the Dewey Decimal System. In this Dewey Decimal System instructional activity, students participate in a Dewey Decimal System competition in order to learn how books are categorized in the library.