Lesson Plans

411 Result(s)
Grade Range
K-5
Fables and Trickster Tales Around the World

The following lesson introduces children to folk tales through a literary approach that emphasizes genre categories and definitions. In this unit, students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures.

Grade Range
K-5
Unicorns, Dragons, and Other Magical Creatures

This lesson will explore images of magical creatures from around the world. After discussing the special attributes of such creatures, students will view images of specific mythological creatures from two cultures and listen to stories about them.

Grade Range
6-8
Lesson 2: Trekking to Timbuktu: Trade in Ancient West Africa (Teacher Version)

For many people, Timbuktu is a metaphor for the mysterious, the remote, or the unobtainable. But the Malian city of Timbuktu was, in fact, once a thriving center of commerce and intellectual activity.

In the lessons of this curriculum unit, students will learn about the geography of Mali and the early trade networks that flourished there. They will study how the spread of Islam influenced the cultures and economies along the Niger River. They will find out about the three kingdoms that evolved in ancient and medieval West Africa.

Grade Range
6-8
Lesson 1: Starting a Government from Scratch

What actions are necessary in order to start a new government? What would one of the major concerns be in preserving the new government and country? What would be the role of the leader or president of the country?

Grade Range
6-8
Picture Lincoln

In this lesson students will learn about Abraham Lincoln the individual and the president. By examining Alexander Gardner's February 5, 1865 photograph and reading a short biography of Lincoln, students will consider who the man on the other side of the lens was. Students will demonstrate their understanding by writing an "I Am" Poem and creating their own multimedia portrait of Lincoln.

Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 2: The Realism in Magical Realism

In this triumph of magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude chronicles a century of the remarkable Buendía family’s history in the fictional Colombian town of Macondo. The three lessons presented here explore the fantastic elements of this imaginary world, the real history that lies behind them, and García Márquez’s own philosophical musings on writing about Latin America.