Contemplate what music learners listen to and why they listen. Can they find poetry within music lyrics? Specifically hone in on blues lyrics and ruminate upon the social issues prevalent in the themes. Particular song lyrics coincide...

Watching Great Performances’ Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival Chicago launches an investigation into and discussion of how the electric guitar and guitarists have changed the sound of the blues over time. An engaging way to...

Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell's classic tale of Karana, a young girl stranded on an island off the California coast, is the focus of a 16-slide presentation that includes a list of vocabulary words, guided reading questions,...

Music composition can be easy with a little software assistance. The class uses Garageband to listen to, write, sing, and record a blues song. They listen to the song provided through the software, write their own lyrics to the song,...

Here is a complex lesson plan that interweaves the history of the Jim Crow South and the Great Migration with the study of poetry, art, and blues music from the Harlem Renaissance. The plan helps young historians develop a deep...

What a neat interactive that interacts with the amount of water on Earth's surface. It begins with a brief audio introduction of the Blue Planet and how it got its name. Then, users click on the activity to play a game...

In this reading worksheet, students answer 10 multiple-choice questions about the book. For example, "What caused the death of the old sea elephant?"

How did jazz influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Class members read some of Ellison's non-fiction writings about blues and jazz, listen to records, watch videos, and engage in student-centered discussions. They then produce podcasts...

Students use the internet to research a recent Blue Angels plane crash. As a class, they list the various ways journalists list the facts of an incident and which one is most effective given different scenerios. They write a story on...

Brenda Z. Guiberson’s nonfiction book, Cactus Hotel, launches a series of activities that model for readers how to determine the main idea in a passage.  Class members engage in an online interactive game to test their...

21st-century learners live in such a visual world that many are unused to letting their minds imagine the picture that words create. An excerpt from Carl Sagan's lecture, "The Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space,"...

Take poetry off the page and put it into terms of movement, physical space and, finally, music with this series of three lessons from the Smithsonian Institution. This resource introduces students to two poetic forms that originated as...

In this recognizing the color blue worksheet, students trace the letters in the word Blue and color the pictures that are blue. Students complete 5 activities.

Wild feral hogs and an alligator wrestler are just two interesting aspects of Kathi Appelt's novel The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp. Using the novel study, scholars search the text for examples of the eight parts of...

If friendship were a soup, what ingredients would be in it? As part of a study of Marcus Pfister's Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale, kids engage in a series of friendship-themed activities using materials contained in this richly...

Dive your class into a reading of Island of the Blue Dolphins with this in-depth study guide. Breaking the novel into three parts, the resource begins each section with a focus activity that identifies a specific theme or question...

For beginners to color, number, and shape theory, this is a great way to solidify skills. They use a key at the top to determine which color (yellow, green, purple, or blue) to shade each shape (square, triangle, circle, and rectangle,...

In this handwriting: blue bike instructional activity, 1st graders trace the words "Blue Bike" once and write the words on their own. They can color a picture of a blue bike.

In this word recognition activity, students trace the word "blue", write the word independently, and color the picture of a pencil.

In this reading for information worksheet, students read a passage about the origin of blue jeans. Students answer 9 multiple choice questions about the text.

This literature study PowerPoint summarizes the main story elements of the book, Island of the Blue Dolphins. Students read about the the theme, setting and events. There are also a few slides where students complete various interactive...

For this online interactive literature worksheet, learners respond to 9 short answer and essay questions about Michael Dorris's A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. Students may check some of their answers online.

In this online interactive reading comprehension activity, students respond to 25 multiple choice questions about Michael Dorris's A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. Students may submit their answers to be scored.

Young elementary learners listen to the story Red & Blue and participate in a collaborative project where they paint a picture using abstract shapes. Then they interpret classmates' abstract shapes and write or tell a story about...