Curated OER
Using Aphorisms to Help Dealing with People
Here's a formal plan for what many effective teachers already do: Provide a week's worth of aphorisms and have learners choose one to write about in their journals each day. They reflect on the meaning of each aphorism and project how it...
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Draw What You Feel in the Bag: Art Game
Here is a great game to play on a rainy day or as a warm up. Kids feel an object in a paper bag, they do not attempt to identify it, they simply draw what they feel. This results in a contour drawing based on line, feeling, and texture....
Curated OER
Analyzing Literature via Literature Circles
Introduce literature circles with Roland Smith's novels. Your seventh graders will see the activity modeled as you read The Three Little Pigs together and apply the format to a Roland Smith novel of their choice. The lesson includes...
Curated OER
The Looking Glass: Artwork of Robert Harris
A series of 4 activities foster critical thinking, careful observation, and creative expression with the work of Canadian artist Robert Harris. Learners respond to half a painting and then to the whole picture while listening to a poem;...
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Rainfall and Water Table
Through inquiry, experimentation, and observation, young scientists see how an increase in rainfall under climate change can affect the water table and soil salinity underground. Young scientists build models that represent the...
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Asian America: Heritage Experience
Learners of all ages read and discuss books about Asian America. In this Asian-America lesson plan, different books for every age group are listed and various teaching strategies are suggested. Great tips cover virtually every grade level!
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Cooking Terms
Using culinary text books, matching exercises, and an "Old Maid" style card game, classroom chefs learn and distinguish cooking vocabulary. They identify terms and techniques used in a chicken/vegetable stir fry demonstration.
Curated OER
Show, Don't Tell: Details to Make Writing Come Alive
After each of three viewings of a 45-second video, aspiring writers employ vivid adjectives and precise, strong verbs to "show, don't tell." First they compose a single sentence, then three, and finally a five-sentence paragraph. Repeat...
Curated OER
Wheelchair Basketball
The class practices bounce passes and chest passes to improve their basketball skills. They get to play a modified basketball game with no dribbling allowed. You could incorporate several modifications into this instructional activity to...
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High Wire Magazine: Turning Points
Develop and strengthen reading comprehension strategies through this comprehensive teaching guide. Your learners will practice making text connections, inferences, predictions, and more using reading passages from the teen-appropriate...
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Dancing through Poetry
Get your class up and moving as they explore how to express movement and dance through words. Designed around two poems by Lillian Morrison about break dancing, the activity truly captures the creative and multi-sensory aspects of...
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Mayan Farming Practices
The introduction of this lesson requires reading a from The Maya by Jaqueline Dembar Greene. Learners sketch a Mayan during the reading. Teaching strategies include direct instruction, grouping the students for discussions, reasearch,...
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Social Studies, Music, The Blues, Urbanization, and Technology
Enable young scholars to use the blues to explore urbanization, technology, and their effects on everyday life in the 20th century. Musicians were among the large number of people who, between 1914 and 1945, participated in the Great...
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Internet Seek and Find
Ask your students to explain how to successfully find information on the Internet, focusing on how to select the keywords that lead to the best information on a topic and by navigating and evaluating a number of Internet search engines....
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Bug-O
Middle school special education young scholars (moderate to severe) learn about insects by playing an entomological version of bingo. They cut out pictures of different bugs and glue them onto a grid. Place the game card inside a sheet...
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Adding to the Picture: The 1963 March on Washington
Who do your scholars imagine when they think about the civil rights movement? If only a few faces come to mind, this lesson will expand their concepts of the movement's leaders. Learners examine an image of the 1963 March on Washington,...
Curated OER
Story Map Book Report
This is an example of what a story map book report can look like using mind wing teaching concepts. Consider this idea as a way to provide special needs or those with learning disabilities a way to communicate what they know or learned...
Curated OER
Four Learning Styles
Students play a game where they insert the states of the United States onto a map, and discuss the four learning styles as they play. In this learning styles lesson plan, students discuss how each learning style would play and think...
Curated OER
Character and their Significance
Students read short stories and write a response to the story about the character and their significance. In this character lesson plan, students also create a poster to represent their character.
Smithsonian Institution
What Qualified George Washington to be President?
Students create a list of characteristics, qualifications, and skills that make an effective President of the United States. They determine what qualificatons George Washington posessed that made him the right choice for President of the...