Famous Explorer Themed Resources

Utilize these printables, lessons, and activities to teach your students about the many explorers who have contributed to society. From voyages across the Atlantic to missions in space, these diverse figures transcended social and physical boundaries and changed how we view our world. You'll find plenty of resources for Columbus Day in October and everything you need to integrate this cross-curricular topic into classes on math, language arts, science, history, geography, or art.

Whiteboard Compatible Mini-Lessons

These 15 minute lessons will introduce your students to famous explorers and explorations throughout history.

Printables

Keep your students engaged when learning about explorers with these printable reading warm-ups, questions, activities, and more!

Lesson Plans

Help students understand the impact of explorers with these lesson plans on maps, voyages, wonders of the world, and much more!

Quizzes

Test your students' knowledge of voyages and famous explorers.

Explorer Biographies

Learn about each explorer in more detail with our explorer biographies.

Geography Activities

Chart voyages, familiarize students with maps and ask questions with our breadth of geography activities!

Digital Books

Expand your lesson with these digital books about explorers, including what they ate, navigation techniques and much more!

Art Activities

Use fun art activities to help students learn about explorers and test their math skills!

Set Design for "Pilgrims of Plymouth"

Math Activities

Help students understand dimensions and number problems with these fun math activities!

Language Arts Activities

Explore further with these reading warm-ups, literature guides, discussion questions and more!

Space Exploration Resources

Not all great explorations take place on land. Teach your students about the great voyages in space, the first people to travel to space, how to track the space station and more with the resources below!

Columbus Day Resources

Columbus Day occurs on the second Monday in October. To find lessons, printables, and activities for all grades on this controversial explorer, browse the teaching resources below.