Lesson Overview: Based on the work of Margriet Ruurs, this is a tremendously powerful lesson for helping children understand the importance of community or school libraries.  Quite often children in developed countries take for granted the many privileges they enjoy.  In this lesson, they get a glimpse of the countless… Read more

Lesson Overview: This is a beautiful lesson about choices based on values.  Essentially, it asks the children to think about whether they would rather do work to earn money or have a long day exploring the natural world.  D.B. Johnson’s adaptation of the work of Henry David Thoreau is brilliant! … Read more

Lesson Overview: Most students have an innate sense of what is fair and unfair.  They can also be quite vocal in expressing their displeasure when they feel that they have been ill-treated.  In this lesson, preference is given to girls.  We purposefully provoke the students then introduce them to a… Read more

Lesson Overview: This lesson offers students a contrast in belief systems. Although many countries and cultures value literacy and the literary tradition, wartime poses threats.  The text and lesson introduce students to one brave librarian in Iraq who heroically tried, and succeeded, in salvaging a library in her war-torn country.… Read more

Lesson Overview: This lesson is the most successful I’ve ever designed for early elementary students to promote the skill of developing questions.  It is tied to the Unit of Inquiry on health and making healthy choices, and I’ve chosen a popular text and paired it with a question-asking exercise.  The… Read more

Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students think about sleep and its importance for health.  Using a Balinese folk tale as the source text, children will describe how, where, and under what conditions they like to sleep.  Then they will draw a simple picture of themselves sound asleep.  To make this… Read more

Lesson Overview: Switching gears a bit, this lesson does not focus on physical health, but on learning wisdom and making healthy choices through listening, thinking, and observing the world around you.   I am a huge fan of Dr. Margaret Read MacDonald’s work, and her Mabela the Clever text is my… Read more

Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students experience just how much fun healthy choices can be.  Using texts that feature food as art, kids get to “play with their food” in creating either a simple caterpillar (pineapples chunks, banana slices, and two chocolate chips on a skewer) or a racing car… Read more

Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students get a chance to learn a traditional dance, listen to a story that incorporates movement, and show off their creative steps in a guided dance from GoNoodle.  Making healthy choices has never been more fun than in this movement-based, literary song-and-dance lesson. Lesson Plan:… Read more

Lesson Overview: This is a “tuning-in” lesson in which we build off the students’ new understanding of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences developed by Howard Gardner.  Make sure that the children have a basic understanding of different kinds of intelligence.  With that basic idea and an armful of easy biographies,… Read more

Lesson Overview: Having learned different ways of being smart, it’s now time to have some fun letting the children challenge themselves.  This is a simple lesson in which you set up stations so that the children can see new things, figure things out, solve puzzles, and generally increase their brain… Read more

Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students use what they have learned about multiple intelligence to sort careers.  They also use the library’s collection of resources on careers to find careers that fit each type of intelligence.  This is a sorting/grouping lesson with a chance for kids to work together in… Read more

Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students practice sequential thinking.  This is great brain training in the “Math Smart” arena.  Logic is part of the “Math Smart” world, and your kids will enjoy learning to tell a computer what to do, then watching the results.  If you don’t know Kodable, spend… Read more

Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students find out who built the first underwater laboratory and who invented the Aqualung.  He was French, wore a signature red beanie, and introduced the world to life underneath the waves.  It was Jacques Cousteau, of course!  Sit back and watch the children delight in… Read more

Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students learn about Wangari Maathai, an environmental scientist, activist, and Nobel Prize Laureate.  Wangari Maathai began the Green Belt Movement that has, over time, led to the reforestation of large parts of Africa, especially her native Kenya.  Be inspired by Wangari Maathai and then plant… Read more

Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students find out who Walt Disney, the man, is.  Today’s children know Disney from Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or the Disney Channel.  However, long before those ventures, he was a young artist and struggling businessman.  Help the children understand that before the Disney media empire,… Read more

Lesson Overview: This lesson is, without question, one of my most favorite of the year.  While teachers often choose Mozart or Beethoven to represent music in the Role Model Unit of Inquiry, I always teach Wynton Marsalis.  Why?  Because he is a jazz great even though he hated to practice… Read more

Lesson Overview: In this lesson students learn about one of the world’s most acclaimed and best-loved scientists, Dr. Jane Goodall.  Bring binoculars and a stuffed chimpanzee to generate interest!  The children will listen to two short picture books and watch two short video clips, both of which will leave them… Read more