Lessons and Ideas

Shakespeare didn’t write his plays for the highly educated. Actors performed his plays at the Globe Theater for people from all walks of life—and all ages! Keep the tradition alive at your elementary school. When presented in the right way, the stories in Shakespeare’s plays are perfect for even the youngest students. We rounded up resources that will help you get your students started on a lifelong love for Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Words -Use Green Eggs and Ham to introduce the idea of iambic pentameter! Full lesson plan here. -Act out the Three Witches scene from Macbeth. Full lesson plan here.…

Calling all science teachers, art lovers, young philosophers and people who like playing with really cool stuff! The world can be a big place, and a very small one. If you've ever wished that you could see DNA or float among asteroids, the internet has granted your wish. Explore the different scales of the world, from sub-atomic particles to the stars! Click here to get started. Warning: You're about to be mesmerized.

For many teachers, keeping students from texting and tweeting during class is a never-ending (losing) game of Whac-a-Mole. But one teacher decided to embrace the art form of short form communication. Andy Selsberg wrote: I don’t expect all my graduates to go on to Twitter-based careers, but learning how to write concisely, to express one key detail succinctly and eloquently, is an incredibly useful skill, and more in tune with most students’ daily chatter, as well as the world’s conversation. He argues that teaching to write concisely is not only realistic for 21st century communication, but also allows for surprising…

Insights from the teacher behind the Chinese Knowledge video. Adina Lerner is a middle school social studies teacher in Manhattan. We had a chance to visit her classroom twice last year and got to see what she and her students had done with Hip-Hop History of the World: Part I. We saw their amazing video, and we saw a lot more. Ms. Lerner shared some of her insights with us last week. 1. Tell us about the process of making the Chinese Knowledge video. I had a really motivated sixth grade class last year, so I presented the idea of…