National Center for Families Learning
The Summer Fun Summer Learning Dramatic and Story Reading Unit
What's the difference between story reading and story telling? Participants in a summer enrichment program learn all about the difference as they listen to famous speeches, engage in dramatic readings, and craft their own short stories...
National Center for Families Learning
The Summer Fun Summer Learning Poetry Unit
Focus on poetry this summer to enhance those comprehension, fluency, and language skills with a set of resources intended to explore different types of poetry, specifically lyric poetry. The daily activities contain differentiation ideas...
US National Archives
Documented Rights Educational Lesson Plan
How have groups struggled to have their unalienable rights recognized in the United States? Acting as a research team for the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, your young historians will break into groups to research how people...
Scholastic
Acceleration Nation Guide
Discover the science of NASCAR! Young scholars rev up their learning as they explore aerodynamic principles. Hands-on activities help learners understand concepts of friction, kinetic energy, and potential energy.
California Polytechnic State University
Australian Geography Unit
At the heart of this resource is a beautifully detailed PowerPoint presentation (provided in PDF form) on the overall physical geography of Australia, basic facts about the country, Aboriginal history, and Australia culture and lifestyle.
Curated OER
Avoiding Armageddon
PBS has written a series of lessons on avoiding Armageddon. This is lesson 4 of 5 and focuses on defining terrorism. Upper graders watch episode 3 of "Avoiding Armageddon - The New Face of Terror," read how terrorism is defined by the...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Treaty Negotiations
Let's make a deal! Drawing on work in previous unit lessons, young scholars negotiate favorable trade treaties with other nations during the early Modern Empire Era. Their work relies on previously completed activities, as well as...
Urban Education Exchange
Lessons and Units: The Watsons go to Birmingham—1963 5TH GRADE UNIT
Get ready to read The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 with a lesson about historical fiction. Spanning several centuries, the resource prompts learners to guess the historical era of a story based on a word or phrase in the text. In...
Curated OER
Jimmy Carter: Civic Action, Lesson 2
Build on high schoolers' awareness of what's wrong with society. Here they examine Jimmy Carter's extensive involvement in volunteer action in the local, national, and global arenas. Define and explore concepts -- philanthropy, citizen,...
French Teacher
La Biodiversite
What is biodiversity, and how has it been impacted? Advanced French readers learn about the changes in species around the world and what the United Nations decided to do about it. After reading the page-long text, your readers complete...
Curated OER
Park Brochures
Sixth graders investigate natural environments by researching national parks. In this brochure making lesson plan, 6th graders explore a specific national park and research it's information by utilizing the web. Students create travel...
Curated OER
Peace and Aggression: A Challenge of Our Time
Students examine the arguments for and against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. In groups, they must assign the Vietnam War a just or unjust war using the techniques used to fight and the reasons used by the government...
Curated OER
The Foreign Policies of Harry S. Truman
Young scholars read an article about the new interest in Harry S. Truman. In groups, they review his foreign policy decisions and how situations might have been different if he had made a different decision. They also examine the...
Curated OER
America's Wars, 1898-1945
High schoolers examine the wars the United States was involved in between 1898 and 1945. In groups, they determine the causes and effects of each war and how each war changed the way the United States handled their foreign affairs. As a...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Refugees From Vietnam and Cambodia
The United States may have pulled its troops from the Vietnam War in 1973, but the conflict was far from over for the citizens living in Asia at the time. An informative resource lets learners know about the wave of over 220,000...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Refugees from the Caribbean: Cuban and Haitian “Boat People”
Should refugees fleeing poverty be allowed the same entrance into the United States as those fleeing persecution? High schoolers read about US foreign policy in the late 20th century regarding refugees from Cuba and Haiti, and engage in...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
History of Immigration Through the 1850s
Everyone living in the United States today is a descendant from an immigrant—even Native Americans. Learn about the tumultuous history of American immigration with a reading passage that discusses the ancient migration over the Bering...
Advocates for Human Rights
A Teaching Guide on Local and Global Transitional Justice
The Road to Peace introduces learners to the concept of transitional justice, a process where nations examine the causes of conflict, identify abuses, and use this information to develop a plan to transition to a society that upholds...
Smithsonian Institution
Cuban Missile Crisis
The United States—specifically John F. Kennedy—played a large role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. A history resource poses questions that encourage critical thinking as well as in-depth analysis of images from the time period.
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Issues of Asylum in the U.S.
Who gets to come to the United States? Examine cases of individuals seeking asylum with an informative reading passage that includes examples, statistics, and representations of public opinion regarding asylum. Groups then go on to...
Advocates for Human Rights
Mock Immigration Court
As part of a unit study of immigration, class members participate in a mock Immigration Court activity in which they argue four cases before an immigration judge.
Curated OER
Everyone Wants to Be President
How can you help your class understand the breadth of duties and the challenges of being the leader of the United States?
Curated OER
It's All in the Measurements
Study customary measurements with your sixth graders. They will investigate linear and capacity measurements to then measure and convert linear and capacity units. Finally they will work in small groups to conduct experiments. Resources...
Curated OER
American Studies
Entitled American Studies, this small unit covers various topics related to the study of the United States. Learners warm up by creating a dictionary of democracy, then dive into three different lessons focused on government, famous...