Curated OER
Spinelli's Maniac Magee (excerpt): Reading and Critical Thinking Practice
A brief, dialogue-rich passage from Jerry Spinelli's novel Maniac Magee is accompanied by a well-written literacy assessment tool. Thematic content lends itself to age-appropriate discussions about race relations and social justice....
Curated OER
Detective Fiction: Focus On Critical Thinking
Turn your 6th graders into detectives while growing their love of reading. Using critical thinking skills, they will be able to describe the five basic elements of detective fiction, read detective novels, make predictions, use the...
Curated OER
Scientific Detectives
Students examine the legitimacy of advertisers' claims about products using science and critical thinking. They view and discuss ads, read a case study, and conduct an experiment to demonstrate whether a product lives up to its claims.
Curated OER
The Game is Afoot - A Study of Sherlock Holmes
Mystery is an exciting genre for young readers to investigate. The plots are so intriguing! Here is a series of lessons featuring Sherlock Holmes stories that invite learners to enter the world of the mystery genre. Based on what they...
Polar Trec
Polar Detectives: Using Ice Core Data to Decode Past Climate Mysteries
How does examining an ice core tell us about weather? Learners set up and explore fake ice cores made of sugar, salt, and ash to represent historical snowfall and volcanic eruptions. From their setups, scholars determine what caused the...
Curated OER
Math Detective: Rounding Four Digit Numbers
In this rounding four-digit numbers instructional activity, students read the multi-step story problem, complete the table and write an explanation of their answer.
Teach Engineering
Quantum Dots and the Harkess Method
The Fantastic Voyage is becoming close to reality. The class reads an article on the use of nanotechnology in the medical field and participate in a discussion about what they read. The discussion method helps class members become more...
Penguin Books
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Young Readers Edition
As the saying goes, you are what you eat. A useful set of lesson plans encourage young readers to take a second look at their eating habits. Pre- and post-reading questions bring in reflective writing and discussion while extension...
Curated OER
Developing Thinking and Reasoning Skills in Primary Learners Using Detective Fiction
Students are introduced to the genre of detective fiction. Based on their reading level, they are given a different series of books to read. For each story, they are to make predictions and practice decoding messages. To end the...
Teach Engineering
See the Genes
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein. The sixth installment of a seven-part series teaches young scientists about the importance of being able to communicate scientific research and...
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
"What should we have for dinner?" "What am I eating?" "Where did it come from?" These three questions are at the heart of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Pollan's book provides some very...
Curated OER
NASA's Mars gamble pays off
Students read an article about NASA and Mars and complete short answer questions about the article. In this Mars lesson plan, students also create a scale model of the solar system.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
How Much Water Do You Use?
Incorporate reading strategies, math, research, and the scientific method into one lesson about water conservation. After reading a story about a landlady trying to determine how many people are living in an apartment, learners develop a...
Planet e-Book
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby has become one of the most iconic novels in American literature. An eBook allows readers to access the full text of the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. With the original words and paragraph breaks intact, new generations...
Curated OER
Port of Entry
Students research patterns of immigration throughout American history. The focus is on the process of how immigrants came through Ellis Island. Students reflect upon the topic to develop critical thinking skills.
Roald Dahl
The Twits - The Twits Get the Shrinks
Turn readers into investigative journalists. The 11th and final lesson that accompanies The Twits by Roald Dahl asks the question "What happened to Mr. and Mrs. Twit?" The lesson uses mind maps and group discussion to help answer the...
Curated OER
Do You Want To Learn more Aobut QC Planning Tools?
Students explore scientific graphs and charts. They describe the origin of power curves and examine QC procedures. Students calculate critical-size errors that are medically important. They read OPSpecs charts. Students describe the...
Curated OER
Exploring the Mystery Genre
Students determine the story elements of typical mystery stories including characters and plot structure. They look at vocabulary that is common to mystery stories before reading and responding to mystery chapter books. Working in guided...
Curated OER
It's A Mystery To Me
Students become both mystery readers and writers. They utilize the Internet to understand the elements of this classic genre; employ critical thinking skills when reading various stories in both print and electronic formats; form groups...
Curated OER
Author's Purpose
Fourth graders read the book Talkin' About Bessie and write a paragraph about the author's purpose. In this author's purpose lesson plan, 4th graders include examples from the story.
Curated OER
Jobs in the 21st Century
Students understand the tools that will be used in the lab in the 21st century. In this job preparation lesson, students experiment and understand how to use lab equipment. Students will write about the lab tools they've experimented...
Curated OER
Recording Electricity in the Brain
In this electricity in the brain instructional activity, students read about neurons, electrical impulses, brain activity and EEGs that measure electrical activity in the brain. They answer four critical thinking questions about brain...
Curated OER
The Family Tree
In this patterns practice worksheet, students read a 3-paragraph excerpt regarding a family tree and respond to 1 graphic organizer question and 1 short answer question.
Curated OER
House and Holmes: A Guide to Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
Test your pupils' reasoning skills with several activities and a quick mystery to solve. Learners watch and analyze a few video clips that demonstrate reasoning in action, practice deduction with an interactive and collaborative...