Curated OER
Modern and Classical Poetry
A fabulous presentation of poetry awaits your students. This rich, 14-slide PowerPoint presents many excellent ways for your pupils to compose poems. The presentation encourages them to play with words when composing poems, to analyze...
Curated OER
Habitat Basics
First graders get out and explore two different habitats to examine how each one meets the needs of the plants and animals that dwell there. They discuss what they've learned about animal habitats as they explore the outdoor environment....
Curated OER
Bog Child
You are destined for an engaged and happy class as they read Siobhan Dowd’s Bog Child because there is nothing missing from this study guide, seriously. This might be the easiest novel to teach because you don’t have to do a thing in...
National Geographic
Measuring Elevation Past and Present
After viewing a short video about a climb up Mount Everest, high schoolers read about triangulation for measuring distant elevations. Have your class work in groups to construct an inclinometer and then use it to measure the height of...
Film English
If At First You Don't Succeed
When faced with a challenge, how do your pupils respond? Starting with character analyses, learners participate in a lesson about appearances and perseverance. They watch a short film, talk about common English expressions, and write a...
Film English
365 Grateful
Encourage gratitude with a short film. Pupils first explore what grateful means and come up with five things they are grateful for. After a discussion, they watch the short film twice and discuss the content after each viewing, focusing...
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
The Backpack Travel Journals
Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record interesting...
Heritage Foundation
How to Read the Constitution
Even lawyers can find the US Constitution to be very wordy! Help learners create a foundation for understanding the Constitution with several analysis essays. Multiple activities complement the reading and allow for active and meaningful...
Armory Center for the Arts
Place Value Collage
How can art represent math? Use a lesson on place value collages to illustrate the different meanings that numbers have in their designated places. Kids observe photographs and paintings that show place value, then work on their own.
Curated OER
Invigorate and Inspire with Van Gogh's Bold Colors
Commemorate Van Gogh's birthday with colorful activities for all ages!
Curated OER
Butterflies: Fly into Science
Engage young learners with these great interdisciplinary lesson ideas for teaching about butterflies!
Curated OER
Post-Colonial Writers Unit
How do cultural and historical background impact thought? To explore this essential question, class members view of portion of the film, The Passage to India, read an excerpt from The Magician’s Nephew, and Nissim Ezekiel’s poem, "In...
Curated OER
The Newspaper Article
Have your class participate in an interview activity using an informational text about the Amazon. After reading a Cultural Connections story about a person from the Amazon, middle schoolers write interview questions based on the text....
Curated OER
That's Moor Like It!
How do modern adaptations of Shakespearean plays relate to their original source material? Middle and high schoolers focus on Shakespeare's play Othello and its screen adaptation "O" to explore how modern film adaptations of Shakespeare...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Tales of the Supernatural
Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic novel to...
Curated OER
Individuality vs. Conformity
Have your middle schoolers participate in numerous activities designed to spark their awareness of literature. They express ideas and concerns clearly and respectfully in conversations and group discussions. Next, they view a music...
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
Section Two: Why is Biodiversity Important?
Explore soil, genetic traits, natural resources, and pollution in a series of lessons that focus on biodiversity. Kids complete experiments to learn more about the importance of varied genes and organisms in an ecosystem.
Curated OER
Cuidemos nuestro ambiente
After discussing the Spanish word ambiente, read the article "Cuidemos nuestro ambiente" with your intermediate or advanced Spanish class. Read the first paragraph together, marking the text and engaging your readers. Then, have the...
EngageNY
Paragraph Writing, Part 1: How Esperanza Responds on the Train (Revisiting Chapter 5: "Las Guayabas/Guavas")
When your class members have completed the novel Esperanza Rising, they will be ready to write an expository essay on how Esperanza responds to events and what this says about her character. Set your pupils up for success by starting out...
Polk Bros Foundation
Common Core Constructed Response Organizer
Get your writers ready to compose a constructed response essay in response to either an informational or fictional text. Pupils note down the big idea they wish to address as well as up to nine examples from the text that they wish to...
Film English
Gratitude
Encourage your class to experience gratitude. In order to do so, discuss what your pupils are grateful for and show them a short film about gratitude. The class watches the video a couple of times before responding to a quotation taken...
EngageNY
Polynomial, Rational, and Radical Relationships
This assessment pair goes way beyond simple graphing, factoring and solving polynomial equations, really forcing learners to investigate the math ideas behind the calculations. Short and to-the-point questions build on one another,...
National WWII Museum
A New War Weapon to Save Lives
Young historians view and analyze photos and documents from WWII that are related to blood transfusions and blood plasma. A demonstration of correct and incorrect blood donors visually shows the importance of knowing blood type. After...
Smithsonian Institution
Water/Ways: The Poetry of Science
Water is the source of life. It appears in poetry in both peaceful and torrential descriptions; it appears in earth science in its liquid, gaseous, and solid states. Combine these interpretations of our planet's most precious and...