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Friendship Gallery
Students create a friendship portrait of a partner by tracing their shape on a panel of paper and filling it in with activities their friend likes to do.
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It's Okay if You Sit on My Quilt Book
Learners create a variety of quil blocks to create a unique pieced quilt top during every class. Based on the book It's Okay if You Sit on My Quilt. Students create a quilt block after each lecture.
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Pack your Parfleche!
Imagine you are a Plains Indian, a nomad getting ready to follow a herd of buffalo. Now imagine what you would have to pack for your trip. Little ones examine images of a traditional parfleche (packing box), and then create packing lists...
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What Kind of Vessel Are You?
This is a strange question; but what kind of vessel would you be and why? After examining images of a large Inca jug, the class sets to writing a creative narrative that answers that very interesting question. They start by researching...
Channel Islands Film
Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island: Lesson Plan 4
Imagine being stranded all alone on an island for 18 years. How would you survive? Class members are challenged to makes necessities out of natural materials that would likely be found on an island.
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The Great Barracuda
Students explore oceanography by researching the great barracuda. In this animal life lesson, students read several vocabulary terms dealing with ocean life and examine a drawing of a barracuda. Students examine the many...
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Clearly Classified
Young scholars review the classification system for living organisms and apply it the classification of insects and flowers in the still life by Ambrosius Bosschaert. They create a chart classifying the animals and plants in the painting...
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Pollinators and Wildflowers
Students explore how plants depend on pollinators to reproduce. In this pollination lesson students dissect a local flower and collect and identify pollinating insects.
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Marshland Ecosystems
Students identify animals in ecosystem depicted on 16th Century ceramic basin and classify them as herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores based on physical characteristics and prior knowledge, determine which life forms in ecosystem are...
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18th Century Microscope
Students examine a microscope from the 18th century. In this microscope lesson, students investigate how it works, what it was used for and how the tool has evolved through the years. Students also build knowledge on how compound...
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Plants and Animals: Partners in Pollination
Students describe the complementary relationships between pollinators and the plants they pollinate, identify adaptations that flowers have developed to "encourage" pollination, and create and draw their own "designer" flowers.
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Symmetry in Paper Airplanes
Students explore symmetry. In this geometry and scientific inquiry lesson, students design paper airplanes with middle line symmetry, as well as right, obtuse, and acute angles. Students measure the plane's angles using a...
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Early Explorers
Fifth graders investigate the routes taken by the early explorers. In this explorers instructional activity, 5th graders use interactive notebooks, discussion and maps to discover the routes taken. Students get into pairs and label maps,...
American Institute of Architects
Architecture: It's Elementary!—Fifth Grade
Young citizens construct an understanding of urban planning in this cross-curricular unit. Covering every aspect of city development from the political, economic, and social influences to sustainable building practices, this...
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The Cleaning Station
Students study cleaning stations. In this science activity, students make a painting of a fish known as cleaners which take dead skin off of other fish.
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Constellation Companions
Students research the star composition for a constellation after a brainstorming session suggesting why humans have organized the night sky into constellation patterns. They use the research to create their own constellation and myth...
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Constellation Companions
Learners identify constellations and the characteristics of the stars that compose them. In this space science instructional activity, students view depictions of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor in the book Astronomical Micelleny. Learners...
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Marshland Ecosystem
Students classify animals based on their physical characteristics and eating habits. In this animal identification lesson plan, students investigate the life forms shown on a Parisian ceramic basin, and discover ecosystem the...
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Japan: Images of a People
Students learn the geography of Japan and its location in reference to the United States.
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Digital Photography and Landforms
Fifth graders create a picture book of local landforms using digital cameras. They also illustrate two vocabulary terms by hand and locate pictures of other geography vocabulary terms in magazines. Students take picture-taking field...
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Medieval Natural Resources
Students discuss and view examples of the illuminated manuscripts that were created during medieval times and into the Renaissance. In small groups, they research the resources that were used to create the manuscripts and classify them...
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Into the Spectacular Sea
Students research coral reefs as dynamic ecosystems and the part that each organism plays within that ecosystem. They create a mural of a coral reef.
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Rocky Observations
Students examine two images of rocks, make their own observations of individual rocks through drawing, and explain how the same observation skills can be used in the study of geology.