Curated OER
Which Would You Choose?
Fourth graders investigate two types of water vessels that were used by Lewis and Clark during the exploration of the Louisiana Territory. They interpret data to determine which vessel was more efficient.
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Create an Illuminated Alphabet Word Book
Students create a class alphabet book. In this letter recognition lesson, students use line and color to draw an object whose name begins with a specific letter. Students use adjectives to create a sentence describing the object or...
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A Card For Every Season
First graders express themselves in simple sentences through the use of computer generated greeting cards. In this greeting card lesson, 1st graders use Microsoft Publisher to design a cover and create text for the inside of a greeting...
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Dream Book Collage
Students discuss dreams and they types of dreams they have. They read the book "Dinosaur Dream" by Dennis Nolan and discuss the characters and events in the book. They look up vocabulary words and create a collage utilizing as many...
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Writing
Fourth graders complete a writing project and tutorial using word processing on a computer. They focus on voice, word choice, details, sentence variety, staying on topic, supporting details and connecting sentences. They edit, save and...
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Language Arts: Final Drafting
High schoolers are able to revise their own essays for greater clarity and fluency, adding explanation where needed and cutting extraneous information where appropriate. They are able to compose an academic essay with a complete...
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Let's Learn About Firefighters!
Students explore, analyze and study about fire fighters and fire safety. They listen to a book, list what they already know about firefighters and fire safety rules and compare/contrast types of firefighters. Each student then writes a...
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All About Me!
Students write about themselves. For this descriptive writing lesson, students view a PowerPoint for examples of descriptive writing and then write sentences describing themselves. Students use a computer program to type their sentences...
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Sequential Curriculum for Advanced Writing Workshop
Twelfth graders engage in a ten-month long elective course focusing on college board review and an advanced writing workshop. Both course components focus on thinking and reasoning skills. Various approaches include sentence combining,...
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"Dr. Xargle's Book of Earthlets"
Students examine the expressive and descriptive language used in the books "Dr. Xargle's Book of Earthlets" and "Planet of the Robots." In pairs they take notes about each other's physical appearance and conduct interviews, identify the...
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Reading a Newspaper
Students define the terms associated with parts of a newspaper. They identify various sections of a newspaper and the type of articles found in each and provide the responses to who? what? when? where? and why? contained in a ...
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Lewis and Clark
Fifth graders use the Internet to research a topic. In this expeditions lesson, 5th graders answer questions about Lewis and Clark based on the movie they watched previously, use the Internet to research Lewis and Clark, write a journal...
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Digital Dreams
High schoolers write a speech. In this dreams activity, students define the word dreams and list their own dreams. High schoolers read and discuss Langston Hughes work, read and discuss excerpts from speeches by JFK and Martin Luther...
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Persuasive Letters and The Tell Tale Heart
Young scholars write persuasive letters based on "The Tell Tale Heart." They brainstorm topic sentences, main ideas, and details. They analyze the character and determine if he is innocent or guilty. They create a map listing their...
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Sonnets
Learners examine the structure of sonnets. They compare and contrast them with modern day poetry. They write their own sonnet after changing the language in another sonnet to see why the author choosed certain words.
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Learning the Printing Trade
Students explore U.S. History by reading biographical text in class. In this Benjamin Franklin instructional activity, students read about the famous American's first job and the transition he underwent from printing to politics....
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Hot Dog Writing
Use a hot dog as a metaphor for good reading, and make your class drool! Writers identify the parts of a paragraph, linking them to parts of a hot dog. Then, they translate this knowledge into a well-written paragraph. While a check-list...
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Setting Goals
Fourth graders view a PowerPoint presentation "Setting goals." They use Kidspiration to organize long and short term goals for academics. Students write essays about Goal Setting. Students work in groups and create a dialogue involving...
Virginia Department of Education
Writing and Research Using Counterclaims
Introduce your high school scholars as to how to use counterclaims in argument writing. Learners explore this skill with collaborative efforts and technology. Together they explore the pros and cons of homework and develop a thesis for...
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Creating Transitions
Fourth graders analyze the use of transitions in text. In this transitions lesson, 4th graders determine how and why a transition is used at a specific time in a piece of writing. They show transitions by using movements before...
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Street Language and Learning
Students examine the type of language they use on the street in the city. In groups, they brainstorm ideas about a topic they decide on from a cluster of words. Using those ideas, they organize them into a written paper using proper...
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Holidays Around the World
Students explore how different holiday traditions are celebrated around the world. Scholars write a paper describing how they celebrate their own favorite holiday. Email partners, from different states and countries, share their...
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Seven Steps for Writing an Academic Essay
Young scholars brainstorm ideas for a teacher selected writing topic. They demonstrate seven steps for writing an academic essay. They jot down words or phrases using different colored pens. They write a thesis statement and create an...
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From A Different Perspective
Emerging writers create a response to their reading. They read Notes from the Trail and discuss whose perspective the journal entry is written from. Then, they write a response to the journal entry in first person perspective as if they...