Classroom subject areas
With St. Patrick’s Day upon us, it’s a great time to learn the geography of Ireland. Any time of year is a great time to improve geography skills, actually, and you can use these ideas with other places, too, but I’ve got some great links for your Ireland study.… Continue reading
This poem, by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, is a beautiful piece of language. Use it as a first introduction to grownup poetry for older elementary and secondary level students. Here’s the poem: Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the… Continue reading
O’Sullivan Stew O’Sullivan Stew, by Hudson Talbot, is a fun choice for St. Patrick’s Day reading, since it’s set in Ireland. The story begins with Kate O’Sullivan seeing the local witch’s horse confiscated by the king’s soldiers. Though she tries to get help from the other villagers, she is unable to… Continue reading
Are you bringing Christmas into the classroom, perhaps along with other winter holiday celebrations? Check out our Christmas Around the World and Christmas literature lesson plans. Continue reading
Zoo animals like lions and tigers may be exciting, but we have a native animal that’s just as big and exciting: the bison. A study of bison can liven up a study on Native Americans, pioneers, the West, or the Great Plains. They’re also a fun animal study subject. FreshPlans… Continue reading
FreshPlans checked out Strataca, a museum at a working salt mine in Hutchinson, Kansas. We had the opportunity to go 650 feet down below the surface and see part of the mine. We learned a lot about salt! There are still salt miners working in Hutchison, mining salt used on… Continue reading
It’s Fall, Y’all — or it soon will be. Check out our lengthy list of fall lesson plans. Continue reading
When we study living things, we like to include four topics: morphology life cycles habitats relationships with humans Morphology The morphology (study of the form) of flowers includes the parts of the flower and what each part does, as well as the different kinds of flowers. Start by introducing or… Continue reading
At this time of year, weather is the perfect multidisciplinary study. Weather is on everyone’s minds, whether you’re facing winter storms or signs of spring. There are perfect literature options like mythology about weather gods or parables and poems about the wind, plenty of science topics connect with weather and… Continue reading
The Sternberg Museum of Natural History is a bit of a surprise. Tucked away in a residential neighborhood in Hays, Kansas, the museum is unprepossessing from the outside. It grew out of the local fossils collections originally housed at the Kansas State Normal School, founded in 1902, which later became… Continue reading
