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Archeologists For a Day
Students listen to a reading about fossils and go on a hunt for items with fossil characteristics. In this cross curricular fossil lesson, students will examine their fossil finds and create a graphic organizer. Students listen to...
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Redistricting: Drawing the Lines
Difficult redistricting concepts are covered in a context that will make it understandable to your government scholars. They begin with a KWL on the term redistricting and then watch a video to answer some questions. They analyze...
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The Internet of Things: IoT
How has the Internet of Things affected our lives? Scholars examine the massive influence of mobile devices in this analysis instructional activity, which begins with a seven-minute documentary clip. They also read a New York Times...
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Into the Wilderness: Habitat vs. Development
By studying the once-assumed extinction, then rediscovery of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, learners look at the physical changes that have occured in habitats throughout Arkansas. This outstanding lesson is chock full of terrific...
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Recurring Nightmares
Does history really repeat itself? Encourage your middle and high schoolers to answer this age-old question by reading the attached articles on the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the Iraq Crisis of 2002. How similar or different are...
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Myths, Folktales, & Fairy Tales
Introduce the concept of myths to your class. Using the link to "Myths Around the World," read a story aloud and have learners list characteristics of a myth. Readers then choose their own myths from the site and work in groups to answer...
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Read Between the Lines
Build comprehension, inference, and conclusion skills by encouraging learners to see the importance of reading between the lines.
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Analyzing Folklore: Redwall
Brian Jacques’ novel Redwall provides the focus for a series of lessons involving the analysis of folklore. Adopting the persona of a character, groups write letters in the voice of their character, assemble a collage using Microsoft...
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The O Zone-Code Read Alert
What are the effects of an air quality alert? Expert groups receive one component of air quality information resources to study. Pupils then jigsaw into new groups and share their knowledge. Finally, they draft a statement of what they...
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Create Learning Experiences with The Polar Express
Center content-integrated lessons around the timeless holiday book, The Polar Express.
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The First Strawberries
Young scholars explore Cherokee legends. They read The First Strawberries by Joseph Bruchac, and then do several activities to help comprehension. They discuss the book and answer comprehension questions. In addition, they retell the...
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Warm Up with Winter Writing
Try these cool writing lesson ideas that promote creativity and increase vocabulary.
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Plan Your Unexpected Journey
Leave your hobbit hole and start an adventure with J. R. R. Tolkien's timeless tale of dwarves, dragons, and hobbits.
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Designing Experiments - Overview
Students explore the concepts that enable them to design and conduct sound scientific experiments. They critique a faulty experiment and become familiar with some of the criteria of a good experiment. They conduct their own experiment.
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Try a Drawing Drawer
Integrating art into your classroom every day just got easier. This fantastic idea provides 43 strips intended to keep early finishers busy and to bring art into the classroom. You cut the strips, put them in a drawer, and have early...
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Use The Polar Express to Develop Rich and Detailed Writing
Bring The Polar Express into your middle school classroom to spark the creativity of your emerging writers.
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Sentence Starters - The Passive Voice
Discuss the active and passive voices with this packet. There are several exercises to complete! First, identify which sentences are active and which are passive. Then, create sentences in the passive voice with the given topic. Finally,...
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Dive into the Common Core with Opinion Pieces
Build your confidence in implementing Common Core State Standards with this CC-based approach to an important writing standard.
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Jumping Off the Bandwagon
Teach your class to be critical consumers by studying persuasion in advertising.
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Information Shuffle
Gather some information, print it onto sentence strips, and then have your class physically shuffle the cards to better understand the importance of organizational patterns in writing. Middle school learners examine information for a...
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Introduction to Canada
Ninth graders investigate the country of Canada by examining their media in this geography lesson. They use the Internet to research Canadian newspapers and analyze a topic covered by both US and Canadian media sources. After comparing...
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Determining the Existence of Gender Bias in Daily Tasks
Help your kids explore gender bias. Learners design and conduct a survey examining role responsibilities within families. They determine the percentage of responsibilities for males vs. females and graph the results. Then they analyze...
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Welcome to the Blogosphere
Create a blog spot for your classroom and promote online discussions. There are several blogging websites listed here, and you can create one specific to each class or one collective site. Teach your learners how to post on the blog, and...
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Be Specific, Go West To The Pacific
Fifth and sixth graders follow Lewis and Clark from St. Louis to the Pacific and back again. They read online journal entries made by Lewis and Clark to gather information. The official Lewis and Clark website is used by learners to...