This handbook provides practical plans for theme-based activities that promote learning through doing. Each activity incorporates a wide range of tasks and skills across multiple content areas that can be modified for students of different abilities and grade levels. The book also illustrates how to make activities more meaningful by including parents, tapping community and Internet resources, and requiring students to engage in structured reflection. The 12 chapters are grouped into sections on basic, intermediate, and advanced performance. The chapters are: (1) "Introduction to Performance Learning"; (2) "Rotting Peels and Cores"; (3) "Sound Bodies for Growing Minds"; (4) "Learning Brains and Music Strains"; (5) "Making Sense of Stories"; (6) "...To Form a More Perfect Classroom"; (7) "Cruising the Cortex: Sightseeing for Smarts"; (8) "Perfectly Proportioned"; (9) "Patterning Neurons to Picture Patterns"; (10) "Half-Life in World Life"; (11) "The Heart-Smart Gourmet"; and (12) "A Special Holiday: AttaGram Day." (Contains 2 tables, 68 figures, and 89 references.) (SLD)