Curated OER
Glossaries
Explore text structure with a focus on the glossary feature in informational texts. Learners read a brief introduction before examining a glossary from a text about plants. They reference it while completing four comprehension questions....
Curated OER
Chef for a Day
Have class members create a recipe flip book for their favorite after school snack. Using ordinal words (first, second next, etc.), young chefs write and illustrate each step in the process on separate cards. They then design a cover,...
DK Publishing
How Many Are Left?
To help novice mathematicians understand subtraction concepts, offer them visual representations of the operation. Here, they look at sets of circles. For each of the 16 sets there is a given number they are to cross out, writing how...
Freeology
Sequence Graphic Organzier
Create a timeline for a text, a topic, a process, or a time period. The choice is yours! This particular timeline goes top to bottom and includes seven spaces for writing in information.
Curated OER
A'planting We will Go
Germination is an amazing process that results in amazing things. The book The Tiny Seed is the inspiration for a set of activities that will help build early literacy, observation, language, and writing skills. The class observes how...
Freeology
Weekly Learning Log
Providing children with opportunities for self-reflection is an important component of learning process. This weekly log supports students with monitoring their growth, asking them to write about what they have learned, what they were...
Illustrative Mathematics
What’s Missing?
Now you see them, now you don't! This fun peek-a-boo activity engages young mathematicians in developing their ability to compose and decompose numbers. After being presented with a series of counters, children close their eyes while the...
Curated OER
General Notebooking Pages
Spice up the note-taking process with a variety of different note pages. Learners can choose from 19 different designs. Many of the pages include space for writing and drawing.
Curated OER
Dinosaurs
Students are introduced to the various types of dinosaurs and write in their journals about their favorite one. After listening to a story and watching a filmstrip, they color a few pages in their Dinosaur Friends Book. They also examine...
Curated OER
Germination
Learners observe the growth of a seed into a plant. They plant their own seeds and record the growth of the plants and write about what they observe. They describe the germination of the seed and create a time line of the growth process...
Curated OER
Snapshots of a Short Story
First graders will be creating and filling in a graphic organizer using Kidspiration, as a pre-writing activity for their short story piece. They then use their graphic organizers to write their entire short story. Once written, the...
Curated OER
Decisions, Decisions!
Introduce young learners to the conscious process of making decisions. Guide them through a scenario where a boy is going to a sleepover and is trying to decide whether to take his teddy bear or not. Use the included worksheet to write...
Achievement Strategies
CCSS Unit Design Template for Art
Art classes, like any lab class, require extensive preplanning and set-up time. Use this planning template in the quiet before the storm to identify the equipment and materials that will be needed, the procedures and processes...
Curated OER
A Walk Around the School: Mapping Places Near and Far
After reading Pat Hutchins’ Rosie’s Walk, have your young cartographers create a map of Rosie’s walk. Then lead them on a walk around the school. When you return class members sequence the walk by making a list of how the class got from...
Illustrative Mathematics
A Bobbie Bear's Buttons
Young mathematicians help Bobbie Bear pick colored buttons out of a box as they learn how to decompose numbers less than 10 into pairs of smaller numbers. To support learners with the process, consider creating a worksheet or graphic...
Curated OER
Retelling the Tiny Seed
Here is a very age appropriate idea that can be stretched, modified, or used as is. Learners review plant parts, discuss pollination, read the story The Tiny Seed, and write a retell sentence. Their sentences describe to way a seed...
Curated OER
Build Mastery: Main Idea
Use a graphic organizer to get readers thinking about main ideas as they record the who, what, where, when, and why of a story. Consider modeling this process completely before kids do this independently. They fill in five boxes charting...
Curated OER
The Hat
Honing reading and communication skills through the theme of farm animals is the focus of this lesson. Students read a book about Scandinavian farm animals and complete prediction journal activities. They complete a worksheet about the...
Curated OER
Berlioz the Bear
Young children read the story, Berlioz the Bear and complete various reading and writing activities. They learn about fiction and non-fiction, and complete graphing and writing activities for the story. Youngsters draw the bear and use...
San Francisco Symphony
Lesson Ideas for Any Music
Music is a wonderful tool you can add to enhance the learning process for every subject. Here is a list of music selections that are categorized by subject, along with some neat teaching suggestions. You'll find songs suited to...
Curated OER
Yakety-Yak!
Students examine the use of dialogue while writing stories. They decide what two different characters would say to each other based on their character traits of being nasty and nice. They complete an activity page.
Curated OER
Arthur and His Pals
Arthur, the main character in Marc Brown’s books, is the star of this lesson plan. Pairs of researchers select one character from the Arthur series and use the internet to access Brown’s web site and learn more about their chosen...
Curated OER
The Gathering and Analysis of Data
Young mathematicians gather data on a topic, graph it in various forms, interpret the information, and write a summary of the data. They present their data and graphs to the class.
Curated OER
Elmer by David McKee
Students explore individual differences. In this literacy and self-esteem lesson, students listen to the story Elmo by David McKee, then describe what characteristics make Elmo special. Students complete a T chart showing how Elmo looked...