Curated OER
Scrutinizing Stand-Ins: Working With Nouns and Pronouns
Use the Schoolhouse Rock episode, "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla," to introduce a study of pronouns. Learners consider antecedents, cases (nominative, objective and possessive), as well as types of pronouns, and then craft sentences using...
Curated OER
Homophone Cartoons
A terrific lesson plan on homophones awaits your youngsters. First, pupils access a website that contains lists of homophones. Then, it's time to get creative! Everyone gets a piece of poster board and they create a homophone cartoon -...
Curated OER
Writing a Newspaper Article
The perfect resource for a beginning journalism teacher or someone designing a journalism unit, this activity prompts students to write a newspaper article. It covers all aspects of the writing process, such as a guided warm-up...
Curated OER
Dolch Homophones
For this effective language arts lesson, students study homophones and practice using the correct words as they fill in the blanks to sentences. Sentence ideas are provided in the lesson, as is a very nice 35-page booklet of language...
Curated OER
Teaching Correct Pronouns
I or me? Are your middle school grammarians struggling with pronoun case? Try this trick. Instruct your learners to look right before or right after the pronoun choice for the words and, or, nor. Have them cover the conjunction and the...
Curated OER
"How To" Speeches Using iMovie
Challenge your pupils with this innovative how-to activity. Instead of simply having learners write an essay describing how to do a particular activity, this lesson plan has them create an iMovie describing a process.
Curated OER
Writing Skills: Statistical Report
A simple text analysis lesson, language learners transfer, order, and group information so that it is presentable. No apparent link to the five required worksheets.
Odell Education
Making Evidence-Based Claims: Grade 6
In order to make evidence-based claims, one must be able to draw explicit information from text. From here, learners take that information, analyze the text to develop a deeper understanding, and connect with the information in order to...
Curated OER
Words In The News
A complete resource from BBC World Service provides informational text for English or ESL classes to teach vocabulary, grammar, and reading skills. Learners participate in small group work, whole class discussions, and role-plays to...
Curated OER
ELD Lesson Plan: Courage
What is true courage? Your class can explore the answer with these three Houghton-Mifflin stories ("Hatchet," "Passage to Freedom," "Climb or Die," and "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle"), which feature courageous characters and...
Curated OER
Forming Plural Nouns
Everyone knows that a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea - but what happens when you have people, places, things, or ideas? Use this SMART board activity to guide your class through plural nouns. Several activities, including making...
Curated OER
Learning Vocabulary by Using Reference Materials
Finding engaging ways to help your middle schoolers build their vocabulary is not easy to do. The lesson presented here offers a great way to motivate them to build vocabulary by making it into a game. Teams of pupils use a dictionary...
Curated OER
Analyzing Word Use Through Guided Wordle
Even though this lesson is just a basic way to review verb usage, it takes a novel approach. First, pupils identify verbs that they use too often in their writing, and then they create a Wordle. Wordle is a website that provides graphic...
Curated OER
Writing Skills: Fables
Use fables as a fun way for English Language Learners to gain confidence and fluency in their reading and speaking skills. After reading a fable in class, they retell their story to a group of their peers. When this jigsaw activity is...
Smithsonian Institution
Spanish American War
Today, Cuba and America sometimes struggle with diplomatic relations, but did you know that America went to war against Spain to free Cuba? Learners examine many interesting facts related to the Spanish American War using an informative...
Curated OER
Subordinate Conjunctions and Complex Sentences for SMART Board
A SMART board is a great way to get kids engaged and excited about grammar. Using this SMART board lesson and worksheet, pupils study the rules of conjunctions, clauses, and complex sentences. After they have worked on the exercises, a...
Student Achievement Partners
Laura Hillenbrand's "Unbroken" and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston's "Farewell to Manzanar"
Passages from Unbroken and Farewell to Manzanar provide the context for a study of the historical themes of experiencing war, resilience during war, and understanding the lasting trauma of war. Appendices include extension activities,...
Curated OER
How to Diamond Poem (2+)
Ever heard of a "diamond poem" format? Neither had I, until I came across this lesson. Young writers are shown a format which results in a poem that comes out in the shape of a diamond! This is a simple, yet effective lesson.
Curated OER
Dragonwings: Evaluate Chapters 10-12
As your class finishes the novel Dragonwings, use these culminating projects. A vocabulary list is given for chapters eleven and twelve and either an epitaph or letter activity concludes the book. The final project consists of creating a...
Curated OER
The News Article and The Editorial
Here is an outstanding series of lessons on journalism, writing newspaper articles, and writing editorials. This type of writing has long-been neglected in our schools, so this collection of writing activities is most-valuable. Along...
Curated OER
One Grain of Rice
Upper graders read the story One Grain of Rice, and use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast topics found in the story to current event topics today. Groups of three learners work together to create their diagram. The topics they must...
Curated OER
Christmas Candy
Here is a tasty topic for a lesson: Christmas candy! Third and fourth graders research classic Christmas candies, then create their very own! They write a descriptive paragraph about their candy, then use KidPix to create an illustration...
Curated OER
Using Word Maps to Expand Vocabulary
Looking for a good lesson plan on dictionary and word definition skills? The lesson plan presented here is for you! In it, learners utilize a worksheet, embedded in the plan, to record a word's definition(s), etymology, multiple...
Curated OER
Dragonwings: Explore Chapters 1-5
If you are beginning Laurence Yep's Dragonwings, this will provide activities for the first five chapters. The objectives include making connections to oneself and the world, organizing information and events, vocabulary acquisition,...