Lessons and Ideas

A Lesson Plan About Ancient Egypt: Students Create Their Own Rosetta Stone For thousands of years after the end of the ancient Egyptian civilization, people appreciated how pretty hieroglyphics were, but couldn't read them. All the information in the hieroglyphics was lost. This all changed in 1799, in a town called Rosetta, in Egypt, when archaeologists found the Rosetta stone. What is the Rosetta Stone? This smooth dark stone is almost four feet tall, and it has three different languages written on it. Because the same passage is written in Greek, demotic (another ancient language) and hieroglyphics, historians have been…

What are the rules for capitalization? Capitalize specific versions of the type of word. If there is a more general version of the word, those are not capitalized. You can capitalize proper nouns like titles, cities, books, sports teams, languages and locations. But don't capitalize the general versions of the above. For example: Capitalize "Grandma Nelly," but not "grandma." Capitalize "New York City," but not "big city." Capitalize Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, but not "book." Capitalize the "Mets," but not "baseball team." Capitalize "Chinese," but not "language." Capitalize "Central Park," but not "park." Once you get the hang…

Running Through the Parts of Speech Listen to Flocabulary's Parts of Speech rap song to learn about the eight different parts of speech and how to use them. Parts of speech are important because they can help us understand the meanings of words and how they are joined together to become a communication. Here's the chorus: It goes... Noun, verb, adjective, adverb, Pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection. Uh-uh, uh-uh, pardon me, We're… uh… running through the p-p-p-p- parts of speech. Once you've listend to the song, try this fun Parts of Speech activity with your students: Write a sentence on the…

  A recent Harvard Business School study found that when people build their own products, they tend to love them more than if they just purchased them. The study called this the "IKEA Effect" after the ubiquitous chain's line of furniture that is (relatively) easy to assemble. If you put in the splinters, sweat and tears putting together your own dinky IKEA table, you'll end up thinking that it is worth more than it really is. In other words: People care more about stuff they create. In the world of education, these findings shouldn't come as a surprise. The "IKEA…

I Want Action Action verbs characterize our every movement and every thought. Do you need a list of action verbs to jumpstart your stories or writing? Here we go: jump sing think dance sleep race giggle watch nap study An easy trick to recognize action verbs is by asking yourself, "Can I do this?"  Can I sing? (Yes, but poorly.) Can I sleep? (Yes!) Can I giggle? (Yup, all the time!) Action verbs can also tell time by changing verb tense. For example, if you nap in the past, present or future, you could say, "I napped," "I am napping,"…