Virginia Department of Education
Current Applications in Science
High schoolers may claim to have no interest in scientific revelations and discoveries, but watch how quickly they download a new app onto their state-of-the-art smartphones. Scholars discuss the scientific or technological...
Teach with Movies
Teaching Students to Write a Narrative
Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a...
Curated OER
Jeffrey and Sloth: Six Traits of Writing
Use drawings as inspiration. Have learners doodle for 10 minutes before beginning the lesson. Then, have them use their doodles to inspire a story. Several writing activities are included here to play with writing. One of my favorites...
Sea World
Whales
A whale of a lesson is sure to intrigue your elementary oceanographers! Learn about the mammals of the sea with a series of activities about whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Kids complete worksheets about the anatomy of a whale, create a...
Curated OER
Go for the Gold!
Young athletes practice various locomotor movements. They use locomotor skills as directed by the teacher to move between "Olympic rings" (hula hoops). Students participate in a discussion about Olympic events prior to playing the game.
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The Grimm Truth—Comparing & Contrasting Children’s Stories and Fairy Tales in Cross-Cultural Texts at Different Points in Time
High schoolers explore world literature through completing several varied exercises. For this compare and contrast lesson students compare and contrast stories and how time and culture impacts the stories.
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Beginning the Year with Local Linearity
Students investigate an article on local linearity. For this calculus lesson, students read about the application of math in the real world. They gain insight from the teachers view of how to teach and relate the topic to the real world.
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A Year to Remember
Students create calendars. In this technology skills lesson, students collaborate to prepare calendars that include special days of the year as well as digital photograph collages.
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The Cold War
Tenth graders explore the origins of the Cold War. In this Cold War lesson, 10th graders analyze selected songs and identify what historical events they reference. Students create a musical collage or timeline for the period...
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Opening Doors to Social Studies with Children's Literature: The Desert Alphabet Book
Students explore the geography of the United States. In this social studies lesson, students identify the major deserts on a map of the United States.
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Who's In The Bag?
Students bring in a bag from home with personal items. In this ice breaker lesson, students bring 10 personal items to school. The teacher shows them, asks the students questions, and has them guess as to the owner of the bag.
Hubbard's Cupboard
The Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving
Students explore holidays by participating in class singing activities. In this Thanksgiving history lesson, students discuss the importance of Thanksgiving Day and read several poems which discuss the history of Thanksgiving. Students...
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The Great Depression
Students analyze the causes of the Great Depression. In this Great Depression lesson, students listen to their instructor present lectures regarding the Dust Bowl, stock market crash, and Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Students conduct further...
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Olympic Challenges
Students consider the impact of the Olympic Games. In this current events lesson, students prepare for the 2006 Olympics by visiting selected websites to learn how the Olympic games began, political issues of the games, and preview the...
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Harmony and Expression in Writing Form
How do you write an interesting beginning, middle, and end of a story? With this activity, young writers look to other stories as examples. Then, they use some of the attached graphic organizers to help them create their own story. Note:...
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Earth, Sun and Moon
Students explore, experiment and study how the Earth orbits the Sun once a year and how the moon takes approximately 29 days to orbit the Earth. They access an online activity to examine the process of how the Sun is at the center of the...
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Capitalization and Punctuation
First and second graders explore writing conventions. They add question marks or periods to the end of teacher generated sentences on sentence strips. They locate punctuation marks in poems and write original sentences using appropriate...
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Punctuation: Periods. Commas,
Color-coded slides model for viewers the various uses of the comma and the period. The rule is presented and followed by several examples. Consider extending the lesson with a practice exercise.
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Seeing Things From the Someone Else's Point of View
Young scholars attempt to see the world from someone else's perspective. In this Peace Corps lesson, students read "Sharing in Africa." The piece challenges readers to consider how show respect for the cultural values of others while not...
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Getting Out of Line
Students explore basic connections between graphs, tables, and symbolic representations for lines, parabolas, inverse models, and exponential models. One of the primary goals of this lesson is to help students begin to recognize patterns...
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Let the Campaign Begin
Students differentiate between positive and negative personal attributes and select a fictional character for nomination who personifies the qualities of a good leader. They use the Internet to learn about the election process and write...
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Debating the Bomb
Learners research the repercussions of the development of the atomic bomb. In this history lesson, students read, reflect and discuss nuclear warfare and how it affected the population when it was introduced, as well as how it...
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Gettysburg Address Lesson Plans
Gettysburg Address lesson plans can show how Lincoln’s historic speech helped to unite the nation.
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Debating the Bomb
Students research how the development of the atomic bomb affected people in World War II, participate in a debate about the bomb's use, and investigate how it has affected people's lives since 1945.