May the 4th Be With You: Best Star Wars Teaching Ideas

 With Star Wars Day, May 4th, just around the corner, it’s a great time to turn the magical allure of the Star Wars movie franchise into fun and fascinating lessons in the classroom. Using the free and modestly-priced Star Wars ideas and tools below, teachers of any galaxy will easily engross Padawans of any age in instruction on any topic. Enjoy!      

• A wealth of Star Wars STEM activities can be found on Star Wars STEM Activities for May the 4th Be With You Science, from creating colorful lightsaber greeting cards to building robots from junk. Many of these super resources are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. 
• Take a deep dive into multiple subject areas using Star Wars as the learning lens. Social studies, robotics, ELL, STEM topics, and even global citizenship will engage kids like never before when their favorite Star Wars characters, moments, and lines form the basis for each lesson. 
• Teaching With Star Wars: The true lessons to be learned from Star Wars aren’t about advanced technology. Instead, they’re about navigating life, whether in a galaxy far, far away or right here on Earth. Star Wars expert and educator Dan Zehr’s terrific series of articles examines ideas such as commitment, learning from failure, and leadership in the context of Star Wars and the classroom. 
• Make your own Star Wars Shadow Puppets for a fun and educational arts lesson. 
• TED Lesson Plan: The Birth of the Lightsaber is a great video-based lesson that guides learners to think about the luminous lightsaber in terms of cinematic design effects and physics. 
• 8 Jedi Math Practices posters and slides serve as a model for thinking about math for younger students, especially those who need encouragement. 
• The Mathematic Shed blog features Star Wars flashcards, geometry questions based on Star Wars characters and spacecraft, and, impressively, a Darth Vader blueprint lesson. 
• From the amazing Code.org folks, this Star-Wars themed coding a galaxy activity includes everything kids and teachers need to start block-based and JavaScript coding.  
• Challenge your students to build Anakin’s pod racer, a hut for Yoda, or a brand-new planet with the Star Wars Lego Challenge Game.
• Teachers Pay Teachers Star Wars lessons include a Star Wars word search, a lesson plan devoted to Star Wars Day (May the 4th), and even a biology lesson based on all Star Wars planetary locales. Many of these are perfect for distance learning.
• Explore software engineer Martin Hunt’s extensive collection of Star Wars-themed origami plans; it’s a wonderful way to get kids excited about making art. 
• Fun Educational Star Wars Activities provides five great lesson ideas for distance learning with Star Wars-themed resources. 
• Teaching ‘Star Wars’ With The New York Times: The Times takes Star Wars lessons to a level above Cloud City with its Shakespeare, history, physics, science, math and yes, economics, Star Wars-themed lessons. An exceptionally strong resource, especially for middle schoolers and above.     
• The presentation 15 Legendary Lessons from Master Yoda can be the starting point for an in-person or remote classroom discussion or writing lesson.  For more great writing prompts check out 15 Star Wars Writing Prompts and 16 free Star Wars writing prompts.
• Try this Yoda speak translator just for fun. Even better, use it as the foundation for an English grammar lesson.  For computer science classes and advanced students, the Yoda translator API allows users to integrate the Yoda speak translator right into their website or application.  
• Explore great ideas for using Star Wars themes to teach music, social studies, English, science, math and more in May the 4th Be With You: Real-World Connections in the Classroom and Beyond.

Source: https://www.techlearning.com/tl-advisor-blog/may-the-4th-be-with-you-20-ideas-for-teaching-and-learning-with-the-force