Alabama ELA Standard: 4.LF.21.a

Chaos can contain order. Order can contain chaos! Is chaos ever truly random?

Young students can use this big idea organizer to identify the main idea and support it with details.

Autumn was once powerful because of the harvest. What gives Fall its power now?

Sometimes power is concentrated in one place. Other times it is spread out.

Your students will investigate statements like: Power leads to change, Power comes in many forms, Power can be used or abused.

Teach your young students to identify the moral or the theme of a story.

We’re looking at capital cities.

Allison Edwards explains how blood flow in your brain affects your decision-making

Some of these examples are conductors and some are insulators!

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Conflict? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Power? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

Which animal has the most interesting, most valuable, or strangest adaptations?

Some of these animals are nocturnal and some are diurnal.

Can your students tell the difference between cubism and abstract art?

What if we completely rebuild something slowly? What if we completely rebuild it all at once? Is it still the same thing?

One artist, two paintings. Notice details, compare, synthesize, then find a parallel in another creator’s work.

A passage from White Fang to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

What would Socrates have thought if he watched Frozen?

Aristotle noted that positive traits and negative traits are often the same thing, but just in different amounts. The right amount is a virtue, but too much or too little and it’s a vice.

Start with facts about Christmas trees. Group them. Label them. Can you boil it all down to one big idea?

Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.

Get kids focusing on the small, but essential, details of a topic.

Every fantasy story has patterns hiding underneath the magic. Once your students see the elements, they’ll spot them everywhere — and use them in their own writing.

Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?

How would an economist read Goldilocks? How would they see a rainforest? How would they study the American Revolution?