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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Details, Details, Details

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
Writing can become one-dimensional if authors don't involve all their senses. First, scholars observe a strange object which, ideally, they can touch and even smell. Without using certain words (you can create a list or have the class...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Lesson: Uncovering a Mystery: Making a Hypothesis

For Teachers 1st - 6th
The class is presented with an image of a hand-carved leg. They act as art historians and hypothesize as to the purpose, nature, and creators of this amazing wooden leg. They compose journal entries from the point of view of an art...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Picture This

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Elementary writers practice writing descriptive paragraphs by adding adjectives and sensory words to their writing. They use a picture of a monster for their descriptive paragraph. This 12-page lesson should increase your charges...
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Lesson Planet Article
Curated OER

Plan Your Unexpected Journey

For Teachers 6th - 8th
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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Lesson Planet Article
Curated OER

Use The Polar Express to Develop Rich and Detailed Writing

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Bring The Polar Express into your middle school classroom to spark the creativity of your emerging writers.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Discovering Saturn, The Real "Lord of the Rings"

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
Reading, writing, and rings! A lesson plan from NASA combines space science with authentic reading and writing tasks. Included in this lesson plan are pre-reading activities, four mini informational booklets on Saturn, a structured...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Blogging to Create a Community of Writers #1: Setting Up the Blog

For Teachers 6th
Writer's workshop is an idea that's been around for years. Students write, read, and comment on each others writing in an authentic and thoughtful way. Here is a 21st century twist, 6th graders will use the class blog to create a...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

World Builder

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
If you could build your own world from the ground up, what would you include? Ask your pupils this question, and have them write about their worlds and share with partners. Then, show the short film, which includes some impressive world...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

London

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Give your class a tour of London! Before you get started, pupils can brainstorm what they do and do not know about the city and discuss how they think it may have changed over the years. The provided video shows footage from London in...
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Lesson Plan
Film English

The Beauty of a Second

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Add many seconds of beauty to your class with a short film and related project. The resource centers around a competition based on one-second segments of film, and the final compilation that came from the contest. Pupils identify moments...
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Lesson Plan
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Berkshire Museum

Adopt a Schoolyard Tree

For Teachers 2nd - 5th Standards
Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science lesson. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing sketches of it in...
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Lesson Plan
Berkshire Museum

Backyard Rocks

For Teachers 2nd - 6th Standards
You don't have to travel far to learn about rocks, just step outside, pick up a stone, and begin investigating. After taking a class walk around the school grounds collecting rocks, young scientists practice their skills of observation...
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Lesson Plan
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Scholastic

Quick as a Cricket Lesson Plan

For Teachers Pre-K - 2nd Standards
Teaching young learners about similes is easy as pie with this primary grade language arts lesson. Following a class reading of the children's book, Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, young readers learn the definition of a simile as...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Lesson Plan for C.S Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew

For Teachers 4th - 5th
Here is a instructional activity that incorporates music writing, and reading literature. The class reads chapter eight from the C.S. Lewis classic The Magician's Nephew. Then, just like in the story, they use music as inspiration to...
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Lesson Plan
University of Arizona

Fusing Firecrackers with Narrative

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Improve your youngsters' descriptive writing. They study an object and write about what they see as a warm-up, then they read an excerpt from Paul Guest's memoir, One More Theory about Happiness. The next part of the activity prompts...
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Organizer
Curated OER

Setting Worksheet

For Students 5th - 10th
Set your class up for success with writing descriptive settings with these two graphic organizers. On the first page, writers note specifc details about their chosen setting and comment on how each character views the setting. The second...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Picture a Tarantula

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Students create an illustration based upon a read-aloud. In this visual arts lesson, students listen to the book The Tarantula Scientist and listen for details. Students create a picture based upon what they imagined during the read-aloud.
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PPT
Curated OER

Improving Descriptive Writing: Painting an Original Picture

For Teachers 10th - 12th
Descriptive writing is rich in sensory appeals and paints pictures in the minds of readers. Show young writers how to use an on-line thesaurus and a cliché website to create fresh, descriptive writing. The presentation ends with an...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Learning About Trees

For Teachers K - 2nd
After looking at pictures of trees, discussing tree growth, and identifying the parts of a tree, lead your class on a nature walk and have them collect samples and record their observations. They then work in pairs to polish the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Lesson: Weaving Words

For Teachers 6th - 12th
A woven rug depicting birds and cornstalks becomes the inspiration for a lesson on critical thinking and creative writing. Learners analyze the symbolism found in the rug and then compose a descriptive paragraph or poem that embodies the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Lesson: That Long Jakes

For Teachers 1st - 6th
Cross-media analysis takes time and attention to detail. The class analyzes the painting Long Jakes and the poem "Backward Bill." They pay attention to the similarities and differences in each piece, looking for details that describe the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Vivid Verbs

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Changing Seasons

For Teachers 4th - 9th
Explore expository writing and using precise language in this descriptive paragraph writing lesson. Learners brainstorm prior knowledge about the changing seasons in Ohio. They describe seasonal items, view seasonal pictures from...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Reading a Dialect

For Students 4th - 6th Standards
Reading a dialect can be difficult; show readers that it can also reveal fascinating details! They read two extracts from Jane Gardam's The Hollow Land, which is written in a British dialect. Readers answer comprehension questions,...