Teaching Themes
Immigration: Everything You Need
Students learn about the effects of immigration on American history and culture with a variety of resources for each grade level.
Interactive Whiteboard Activities
Immigration: Stories of Yesterday and Today
Grades: PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5, 6–8
Take a tour of Ellis Island, explore an interactive immigration timeline, and meet young immigrants in this online activity!
Unit Plans, Writing Activities
Celebrate Your Heritage
Grades: 3–5
Students interview relatives about their heritage, make a family tree, and map their ancestors' migration in this lesson unit on America's cultural diversity.
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 Online Learning Activities Angel Island: Angel Island: An Asian Pacific American Heritage ActivityGrades: 3–5, 6–8 Students get a unique firsthand account of what it was like for a young girl to move from a small Chinese village to the U.S. in the 1930s. |
 Interactive Whiteboard Activities The First ThanksgivingGrades: PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–12 These interactive activities, lesson plans, and virtual field trips to Plimoth Plantation help bring the history of Thanksgiving to life. |
Articles Immigration ResourcesGrades: PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5, 6–8 Books & Teaching KitsIsland of Hope: The Story of Ellis Island and the Journey to America, by Martin W. Sa |
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Author's Notes, Authors and Illustrators Breaking Through Author's NoteGrades: 3–5, 6–8 In this essay, Francisco Jimenez shares that his book, Breaking Through, is autobiographical, spanning crucial years of his young adult... |
Booktalks One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping BooktalkGrades: 6–8 My twelfth birthday was the last one I celebrated with my parents. It was 1938, and I was a Jew in Vienna. |
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Booktalks Esperanza Rising BooktalkGrades: 6–8 Esperanza means hope, and hope is what Esperanza needs, to help her rise above the wreckage of her life in Mexico, and learn to survive in the... |
Esperanza Rising Text ExcerptGrades: 3–5, 6–8 This is a text excerpt of Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan |
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Author's Notes Esperanza Rising Author's NotesGrades: 3–5, 6–8 When Esperanza and Mama are forced to flee to the bountiful region of Aguascalientes, Mexico, to a Mexican farm labor camp in California, they... |
 Booktalks, Articles & Collections Flight to Freedom BooktalkGrades: 6–8 When thirteen-year-old Yara and her family leave Cuba to live in Miami, they have no idea what lies before them, and what kinds of changes and... |
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Booktalks Behind the Mountains BooktalkGrades: 6–8 New York City and Haiti are worlds apart. Celiane and her family knew how to live in Haiti, but will they be able to survive in New York as well... |
Booktalks, Articles & Collections First Person Fiction: Finding My Hat BooktalkGrades: 6–8 This is my story: losing my hat, looking for my hat, finding my hat. But it isn't really about hats at all. It's about how I figured out who I am... |
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Booktalks My America: Home at Last BooktalkGrades: 3–5 Finally Sofia is back with her family, but they've moved to Boston, leaving her best friend Maureen behind in Brooklyn. Will the girls ever see... |
 Articles Island of Hope: The Story of Ellis Island and the Journey to America BooktalkGrades: 6–8, 9–12 Ellis Island. From 1892 to 1954 it was the gateway to America. But was it an island of hope, or of tears? |
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Discussion Guides, Book Resources The Circuit Discussion GuideGrades: 6–8 Discussion guide for The Circuit, a book of stories, by Francisco Jimenez. |
Lesson Plans, Book Resources Hannah's Journal Lesson PlanGrades: 3–5 Students practice journal writing and learn about the immigrant experience in this lesson plan based on Hannah's Journal: The Story of an... |
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Lesson Plans, Book Resources Books for Teaching About Cultural DiversityGrades: 3–5 Teacher created book list that focuses on how people from cultures all around the world have come together as Americans. |
Articles & Collections, Book Resources Books About Time TravelGrades: 9–12 This teacher created book list includes tips for classroom use. |
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Articles Relive a Boy's JourneyGrades: PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–12 Learn about Seymour Rechtzeit, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who became a famous child star, through his firsthand account of coming to America.... |
 Booktalks Booktalk for The Arrival by Shaun TanGrades: 6–8, 9–12 New country, new home, new hopes and dreams. Everyone comes from somewhere else. This is the story of one of those immigrants. |
