Curated OER
Information Shuffle
Gather some information, print it onto sentence strips, and then have your class physically shuffle the cards to better understand the importance of organizational patterns in writing. Middle school learners examine information for a...
Curated OER
Moby Dick Puppetry
Such an ambitious lesson! Third graders with special needs listen to an audio recording of the novel, Moby Dick. They stop often to discuss each of the main characters and analyze their actions in the story. They then make puppets of one...
Curated OER
"O Captain! My Captain!"
Who was Walt Whitman, and what link does he have to president Abraham Lincoln? After Lincoln's assassination, Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" This poem and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" are the focus of...
Pennsylvania Department of Education
Freckle Face
Students collect and record data. In this early data analysis lesson, students gather data about their partners face. As a class, the students use tally marks and pictographs to record the data and answer question about the information...
Curated OER
Activity Plan 5-6: Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!
Students become entomologists for a day. In this life science lesson, students go on an insect hunt and investigate insects and their homes. This leads to the creation of an insect by each student. Lesson includes a take-home activity...
Curated OER
Learning about Maps and Colors
First graders discuss "Harold and the Purple Crayon" and his drawings. In this neighborhood geography activity, 1st graders learn to detect and classify places on a map including their home. Students recognize their address as a specific...
Curated OER
Dali & Desnos: Surrealism in Poetry and Art
Students research the surrealism movement and its primary artists. Language is also analyzed, and students will create their own original poem utilizing surrealistic techniques.
Curated OER
Discovering Peace
Students explore vocabulary related to peace. In this peace lesson, students define the word "peace" and create a poem about peace. Students create a "peace quilt" as a follow-up activity.
Curated OER
Primary Sources and Protagonists: A Native American Literature Unit
Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...
Curated OER
Creating Comic Strips
Students create comic strips to communicate ideas that cannot be expressed through words alone.
Curated OER
Industrial Revolution
Students cite the importance of the steam engine, cotton gin and steel making process. They describe conditions in cities due to increased industrialization. They explain how the living and working conditions led to the development of...
Curated OER
Harriet Tubman
Students detect specific characteristics in the paintings of Jacob Lawrence. In this collage lesson, students utilize the style of Jacob Lawrence to create works about Harriet Tubman and her life.
Curated OER
How Weather Affects Our Lives
English learners practice basic weather terms from listening to two books. They keep a daily weather record for two weeks to record the type of weather, as well as the high and low temperatures for each day. Next, they complete a simple...
Minnesota Literacy Council
Scientific Method
Here is a resource with a descriptive approach to explaining the scientific method. It's simple, but effective for both introduction and reinforcement of this concept.
Curated OER
Write a Number Story
Students view number stories at a website and write their own. They insert a drawing and the text of their number story using a software such as PowerPoint to create a presentation for the class and parents.
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Imaginary Creatures
Drama and movement are wonderful ways to cover story elements such as setting, character, and descriptive writing. Little ones listen to a poem about imaginary creatures. As they listen, they shape their bodies into what they think the...
ReadWriteThink
Promoting Student Self-Assessment
Keep class members accountable for their own learning with a series of differentiated instruction strategies. From rubrics created by pupils to learning contracts written at the beginning of the year, the resource offers multiple ways...
NET Foundation for Television
1850-1874 Railroads and Settlement
Have you ever wondered how your town was placed where it is? Scholars research the impact the advancement of the railroad due to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act had on the formation of civilization in the Great Plains. Map...
Curated OER
Venn Diagram-Paleolithic and Neolithic
Review the paleolithic and neolithic time periods using this creative lesson. After a unit on Mesopotamia and the Stone Age, learners fill out a Venn diagram comparing the paleolithic and neolithic period, and write a paragraph...
Curated OER
Parts of a Plant
First graders discover the parts of a plant. In this science lesson, 1st graders identify and label the parts of a plant and record their findings on a word processor.
Curated OER
Collaborative Tall Tale Lesson Plan
Using Keynote, pupils will collaborate with their peers to create a tall tale. Each person in the group will participate by creating slides, adding text, and recording their voice. Tip: Have each group present their tall tales to the...
Curated OER
Transition Words in Writing
Transition words in writing are the focus of the language arts lesson plan presented here. In it, learners cut out the word-sort cards (embedded in the plan), and put them into four categories: time, examples, space, and summary. They...
Curated OER
Persuasive Writing-"Those Whales"
Use an article about an Orca killing a trainer to help writers complete a persuasive essay. The article, other templates, and models are attached. Scholars divide up into groups of three where each person takes a different role,...
Curated OER
Snowy Days
Students explore the book "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats. They predict what the story is about and predict what will happen in the story. Students write their own endings for the story.