Kindergarten
3rd Grade
- Guatemala
- Peru
- Couriers in the Inca Empire: Getting Your Message Across - This lesson will show how the Inca communicated across the vast stretches of their mountain realm, the largest empire of the pre-industrial world. It will explain how couriers carried messages along mountain-ridge roads, up and down stone steps, and over chasm-spanning footbridges. Couriers could pass a message from Quito to Cuzco in 10 days, about the same time as it takes today's modern postal service to deliver a letter between those two cities. For grades 3-5.
5th Grade
6-8 Grade
9-12 Grade
- Culture in Art - The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo
Explore how cultural aspects of our lives are depicted in society. Identify the cultural elements Frida Kahlo referenced in her work.
General Latin American Lesson Plans
Latin American Immigration & Migration
- Why Do People Move? Migration from Latin America - SPICE Publication, Stanford University
This curriculum unit for middle and high school looks to give students tools to look beyond immediate circumstances and gain insights into the historical process of migration and promote an understanding of the reasons people have for leaving their community or country by presenting studies of six countries in Latin America: Mexico, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Cuba.
- Understanding Migration: Curriculum Resources for the Classroom - Hemispheres: The International Outreach Consortium, University of Texas
- Latin American Immigration In Editorial Cartoons - Lesson Plan (Free Registration required)
- Approaches to Understanding Current US/Mexican Immigration Issues - Kellogg Institute
- Thinking Critically about Internet Sources uses a research project on the immigration issue as an example of how to judge the validity of Internet sources. It provides two websites that offer differing views of the immigration topic and examines the background of the organizations sponsoring the site. This is geared toward high school students.
- Arizona's Controversial Immigration Law - Use this site to research and discuss Arizona's controversial immigration law.
- Presidential Election 2008: Our Broken Immigration System - Students debate the issue of illegal immigrants and driver's licenses using resources provided on this page.
- Esperanza Rising: Learning Not to Be Afraid to Start Over: This is a comprehensive lesson plan for middle school to accompany Esperanza Rising, the novel about a young Mexican girl adapting to her new life in the US. There are Spanish language editions of this book.
- Illegal Immigrants: Why Do They Come? - provides three readings plus links to help high school students delve into the economic pressures behind immigration.
- US Mexico Border: The links at this National Geographic site are older, but the lesson plan is still good.
- The Border Studies Curriculum - includes 20 Ready-To-Use Lesson Plans For the Secondary Classroom.
- Where I Come From - On a broader view of immigration, Where I Come From helps students research their own families' immigration story.
- The City / La Ciudad - PBS (Film) - Lesson Plan
- The New Faces (Film) - Lesson Plans
- Remaking America: Contemporary U.S. Immigration - Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
The 11 curriculum units in this volume contain four elements: objectives, teaching strategies, sample lessons and classroom activities, and lists of resources for teachers and students.
- Latin America: Our Neighbors at Home and to the South - Lesson plans especially designed to assist fifth-grade instructors in teaching about Latin America, this 10-week topical unit includes lesson plans and activities.
- Immigration: Stories of Yesterday and Today(Scholastics) - Encompasses material appropriate for a number of grades. Most activities can be used with students between grades 3 to 8. However, some activities feature content that is appropriate for younger grades.
Latin American Cities/Urbanism