lesson ideas

Talking About Race in America

Black History Month “We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent. We have chosen a profession that—like parenting—requires us to put our comforts second to those of children.” Jamilah Pitts As February approaches, so does Black History Month. As we spend this month learning more about Black history, keep in mind that Black history did not begin with American slavery and end with the Civil Rights Movement. Black history has deep ancestral roots leading back far beyond the beginning of our country. Do your students know that thousands of years before American...

I Do Solemnly Swear: Inauguration Day 2021

Struggling with how to teach the inauguration in your classroom? Below you will find lessons, read alouds, primary sources, and seesaw activities to help students better understand this day in history. Read Alouds Utilizing picture books can be a great way to introduce challenging topics for students. Below you will find two different book lists, and also two different picture books that are read aloud on YouTube with corresponding lesson plans you could use and adapt to fit your needs.  This list of books for election day includes stories that are applicable for Inauguration Day. Senate.gov has curated a list of...

Station Rotation in a Virtual Class

Station rotations can be a great way to help students engage with topics or ideas. This post curates some ideas and resources to help you get started.

Using Pages Templates with Elementary Students

We wanted to eliminate using multiple worksheets and add depth of knowledge to science and social studies assignments this year. Making templates in Pages is easy to do, so we took content and created templates for each activity that we could use with students in class. Why Use Templates in Pages? Interactive templates allow more opportunities for students to engage with the task. Students can be creative by adding photos, sounds, or even videos. Students are able to expand on ideas by linking websites found in research, linking to different areas of a longer document (ie, an interactive table of contents),...