Curated OER
Literary Terms: Take Me to the Theater!
Take your class to the theater! First graders will examine characters that actors play such a villians and heroes. Then participate in creating plays and performing in them. They will also research what it takes to create scenery, props...
Curated OER
Getting Started: Pre-Writing Techniques
Pre-writing activities are covered to help your students examine topics and personal experiences. Your class will discover how to choose topics which create a strong piece of writing and incorporate personal knowledge.
Foreign Policy Association
Latin America Online Lesson Plan
To understand the complexity of economic and foreign policies, class teams research a Latin American country, draft a strategic economic improvement plan for this area, and present their plan at a model economic summit.
Curated OER
First-Day-of-School Activity: The Kissing Hand
Looking for an interactive back to school activity? Start by reading the book The Kissing Hand, and having your class discuss their feelings about the first day of school. They trace their hand onto paper, cut out the paper hand, paint a...
Curated OER
Online Information: Fact or Fiction
Discuss ways to determine if the information middle and high schoolers gather online is accurate. Using the Internet, they cite two sources that show conflicting points of view on a subtopic of conservation. They summarize and analyze...
Curated OER
My Math Curse!
Math novices examine how math can help them in real-world situations. They listen to the book The Math Curse by Jon Scieszka, solve various word problems from the book, explore various math websites, write original math word problems,...
Curated OER
Famous First Graders Unit
Class members become reporters, photographers, and movie producers to interview each other as they become "Famous First Graders." Learners work as a team to interview the famous person and then produce a short movie. They create...
Curated OER
Science: Schoolyard Trees
Sixth graders choose specific trees to research while taking a nature walk around the schoolyard. They discuss tree and leaf parts and observe various types of leaves. After writing their reports, 6th graders present them to the class...
Curated OER
Indispensable Listening Skills
It's true: listening skills have to be taught and developed. Read this story about a tiger to your high school class. Then, without giving them a copy of the story, divide them into teams and have them attempt to answer a series of...
Facing History and Ourselves
Tactics of Nonviolence
Learners analyze the direct action tactics of nonviolence. As a class, they distinguish between a strategy and a tactic and identify tactics used during the civil rights movement. They relate these tactics and how they might be used to...
Curated OER
Evaluating the Strength of Scientific Evidence: The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker
A happy discovery occurred in Arkansas in 2004: a woodpecker, believed to be extinct since the 1940s, reappeared! Or did it? Middle to high school ecologists examine scientific evidence and use critical-thinking skills to determine...
Curated OER
How Are Stars Like People?
A beautifully written lesson plan delves into a beautiful topic: stellar population. Engage aspiring astronomers with activities that examine human populations and then transition onto the stars of the universe. Data and photographs for...
Curated OER
Photocells II: The Photoelectric Effect in Photocells
It's not easy to find fabulous physics lesson plans, but School Power Naturally has put together a series of them. In this particular lesson, high schoolers learn about the structure and functioning of photovoltaic cells. They construct...
Curated OER
Heating and Cooling a Really Large Lizard
Remind your middle school scientists how fox ear size varies depending on the climate they live in; large ears allow heat loss while small ears keep heat in. Discuss how a cold-blooded animal might try to regulate body temperature. Then...
Curated OER
Solar Kit Lesson #8 - Positioning Solar Panels II: Explorations with Stationary Panels
This lesson is preparation-intensive, but well worth the investment. You will construct five or six portable testing stations with which lab groups will gather data on the best position for collecting sunlight with a solar panel. This is...
Curated OER
Comparing Fractions
Young mathematicians compare two fractions with like denominators and then move to the next level to compare fractions with unlike denominators. They will first try to use mental math to make educated guesses. There are a few guidelines...
Virginia Department of Education
Properties of Real Numbers
Learners use paper cups and colored chips to observe properties of operations with real numbers. As a class, students brainstorm and use manipulatives to demonstrate associative, commutative, distributive identity and inverse properties....
Curated OER
Using a Graphic Organizer to Research a Question
Is Pluto still a planet? Using this popular question, kids are introduced to graphic organizers as a writing tool. As a class, they watch a demonstration on how to use them and work together with a partner to research whether Pluto is a...
Curated OER
I'm a Changed Pig
Introduce your class to fairy tales with this lesson. After reading the fractured fairy tale, "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig," third, fourth, and fifth graders write a personal narrative as a response to the fairy tale....
Curated OER
We Are All Authors
Read and discuss a variety of books by different authors and have your class create their own book. They will identify the different parts of a book, then using a story they have already written, they enter their story and information...
Curated OER
Dog Pen Problem
Teach your class about various approaches to solving the problem of maximizing the area of a rectangle space with a fixed perimeter in the context of a farmer's dog pen. Then, they complete a worksheet independently to summarize the...
Curated OER
Rooting One's Way to Meaning
Discover the Virtual Thesaurus with your class. They use the Virtual Thesaurus to assist them in an inquiry-based approach to discovering the meanings of some common Latin and Greek roots. Each child then teaches a particular root and...
Curated OER
Whose Afraid of Contemporary Art?
Have your class create original modern art sculptures. Learners analyze and discuss "The Profile," a sculpture by Martin Puryear. They work in teams to develop a proposal for a large outdoor sculpture in the community. Presentations...
Curated OER
Understanding Points of View
Develop an understanding of point of view in your young learners. Read narrative stories to your class and discuss who the storyteller is. Point out different points of view and discuss new vocabulary in order to introduce this concept....