The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you just learned this morning.
Unknown Source
May 9, 2008
Complete lesson plans from the education staff at AIT
Select a subject, or scroll down to view the whole collection.
Technology integration made easy!
With years of classroom experience, and countless hours reviewing and developing instructional media here at AIT, we are delighted to share our best ideas for classroom utilization with you. How better to do that than in a lesson plan?
With Lessons ALIVE! you'll find:
- An expanding collection
- Inventive ways to implement technology
- A variety of exciting methods to facilitate learning
- Contemporary structured approaches modeled
You're invited to submit your own lesson plan ideas to our Lessons ALIVE! library. If you use an AIT product, please contact us by writing to info@ait.net and tell us how you use it. We just might publish your idea here, with due credit to you, of course.
Rules of Conduct: Media Violence, Dating, and Teenage Behavior
Grades 7–12
Utilizing Working It Out Together: Peer Mediation and Conflict Resolution and The Etiquette Man, this lesson has a two-fold purpose: first, to enlighten students about the escalation of violent events projected by the media daily and second, to put the ideas of civility and social conduct in historical perspective so that students may draw their own conclusions about how conduct may be related to teen violence.
Secret Stories: Exploring the Elements of Folktales and Fables
Grades 1–3
Using programs from Letter TV, Letter TV III and Sixteen Tales, encourage students to explore the elements of literature, develop their own unique writing styles, and explore the stories of other cultures.Brainstorms! Graphic Organizers & the Writing Process
Grades 3–5
Help students learn how to improve their prewriting skills—designing graphic organizers that spark creativity—by focusing on the mystery genre programs from Club Write Kids and Wordscape.
A Penny for Your Thoughts: Cross-Curricular Journal Writing
Grades 4–7 (non-departmentalized)
Using programs from AIT series across all curricula, beginning with the journal-based series Club Write, the lesson will demonstrate effective ways to encourage students to make journaling a lifelong endeavor.Find the Hidden Message: Media Literacy in Primary Grades
Grades K–2
Using programs from Letter TV II: Consonant Combinations and Letter TV III: Reading Rules, this lesson gives teachers in the primary grades some tools to teach children how to access, analyze, and evaluate the flood of information that inundates them on a daily basis.All the World’s a Stage: Using Readers Theater to Teach History and Develop Reading Fluency
Grades 4–10
In this lesson students will create and perform a script within a Readers Theater to develop deep understanding of an historical event from their social studies curriculum. The programs are used from Front Row Center, Heroes Read, Inventing Flight, and Retro News.They Write the Songs: Using Writing-to-Learn Strategies to Develop Insight about Environmental Health Topics
Grades 6–12
Using programs from Energy, the Pulse of Life, Cracking the Code, and Front Row Center, students will learn about three persuasive techniques, discover persuasive metaphors and hidden meanings in the lyrics of a well-known song, and examine some clever songs about energy, efficiency, and the environment.
Computation with Fractions
Grades 4–6
Using programs from Mathemedia, Math Works and Math @ Work, students explore fractions and develop strategies for computing with fractions. Students will then apply what they have learned about fractions while gathering and analyzing weather data.Secret Formulas: Calculating the Perimeter and Area of Rectangles and Squares
Grades 3–5
Students will calculate the perimeter and area of common objects found in the classroom and at home and discover how people apply measurement skills in everyday situations using programs from Math Works and Math Can Take You Places.Getting Into Shapes: Identifying and Describing Two-Dimensional Shapes
Grades 1–2
With the help of programs from Mathematics Is Elementary and Soda Shapes, students see how circles, triangles, rectangles, and squares are parts of things they see every day.Balancing the Scales: Understanding Ratios
Grades 5–8
Enhance students’ understanding of ratios and develop their proportional reasoning skills using programs from Math Works, It's a Gas: Math & Science of the Blimp, and Mathemedia.
How Do You Name MILLIONS of Arthropods?: Applying Taxonomy
Grades 5–7
Using programs from AIT's The Shape of Life and Life on Our Planet, students will learn about the science of taxonomy, and apply the principles of taxonomy to categorizing the various species of arthropods. They will explore the task of organizing animals using dichotomous keys and the hierarchy of taxonomy, and then try their hand at creating, categorizing, and naming a “new” arthropod species.
Trashing the Planet: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Grades 3–6
Encourage students to analyze the trash problem in America and brainstorm solutions with this cross-curricular lesson that springs from three AIT classic series: The Outside Story with Slim Goodbody, Economics at Work, and Art History III—Mastery in Three Media."On the Move: Understanding Newton’s Laws of Motion
Grades 6–8
Utilizing programs from Minds on Science and Inventing Flight, students will observe objects in motion and speculate why they move the way they do. They will then discuss the meaning of Newton’s three laws of motion and apply these laws to everyday situations.Sink or Float?: Exploring the Laws of Buoyancy
Grades 6–8
Using programs from Super Science Sleuth and It's a Gas!: Math & Science of the Blimp, students will investigate Archimedes’ Principle by observing floating objects and conducting experiments. Students will also discover the relationship between density and buoyancy.
Wild Things: Exploring the Basic Needs of Animals
Grades 1–3
Students are introduced to the basic needs of animals: air, food, water, and a suitable place to live, using programs from Science is Elementary, Up Close and Natural, and Naturimages.
Liberty vs. Safety: An American Dilemma
Grades 7–12
While exploring videos from Tracks: Impressions of America and Human Rights: Youth Perspectives, students will examine their own values about liberty and their concerns about domestic security. They will review the position of contemporary leaders and develop position statements on this issue. Then, they will place this discussion within the context of two of the defining moments in U.S. history when this country’s resolve to liberty was tested.Trekking Across America: A Look at the Development of Transportation
Grades 5–9
Using programs from Tracks: Impressions of America, America Past, Technology of Transportation, and Inventing Flight for Schools, students will examine the development of new transportation in the 19th century and evaluate the impact of transportation on society, the economy, communication, and travel.Decisions that Changed Our Lives: A Look at the African American Quest for Freedom and Rights
Grades 5–8
America Past, Northward to Freedom, and Tracks: Impressions of America are the programs used in this lesson to encourage students to explore race relations and the struggle for equal rights.
Where in the World? The Basics of Longitude and Latitude
Grades 4–6
In this lesson, students will explore magnetic fields and coordinate grids to locate world landmarks with the help of programs from Science for You and Antarctica: 90 degrees South. Then they will create riddles and mysteries of their own based on what they’ve learned about compasses, latitude, and longitude.Shrinking Spaces: Population Growth and the Environment
Grades 9–12
In this lesson, students will explore magnetic fields and coordinate grids to locate world landmarks with the help of programs from Road Trip to Kenya, The Voyageur Experience in Global Geography, and Global Geography. In this lesson students will investigate the problems that are associated with high population growth rates. Students will also explore what people are doing to cope with overpopulation.Express Yourself: How Can Citizens Participate?
Grades 3–5
With the help of programs from Solve It, democracy it is!, and Club Write Kids, students will discover why civic participation is crucial to the maintenance of a representative democracy and explore various ways they can become involved in government.Voices of History: Relating Historic Events to Current Events
Grades 4–6
This lesson utilizes programs from Assignment: The World and Tracks: Impressions of America. Students will chose to represent the perspective of an historic figure as they react to the recent news events.Bull’s Eye!: Connecting Community-State-Nation-World
Grades 3–6
Using programs from Assignment: The World, this lesson explores how to link world events to nation, state, and community so that students can readily understand relationships between themselves and world events.
When Opportunity Knocks: Technology’s Global Impact on Resource Use and Economic Health
Grades 8–10
This lesson helps students relate to concepts of global interdependence and world geography by focusing on those emerging technologies most important to their lives: cell phones, Mp3 players, video game systems, and computers. Programs from Creating Our Economy and The Voyageur Experience in Global Geography are the focus of the lesson.Women at Work: Early Elementary Explorations of Gender Roles and Career Options for Women
Grades 1–4
Using programs from Math @ Work and Retro News, this lesson plan offers teachers several activities designed to teach early elementary students about women and work.
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