Virginia Department of Education
Square Patios
Build a patio from toothpicks and marshmallows to analyze functions! Learners look for patterns in the data as they create different size patios. As they discover patterns, they make connections between the different representations of...
Curated OER
Looking for Trouble - Using the Internet to Research Structured Controversy
Discuss controversial issues with your charges. More importantly, discuss how you have to research both sides of a controversy before taking a stance. In groups, middle schoolers research the controversial issue of dog sled racing. They...
Curated OER
Time On My Hands
Young learners engage in discussions and activities on telling time, different types of clocks, and how the parts of a clock actually work. The engage in interactive websites, hands-on games, and watch a video on the art of the clock and...
Curated OER
I Am Special and You Are Special Too #4
The students listen to a book about being different and investigate that everyone is different, but special in their own unique way. The students draw a picture of themselves using multi-cultural markers. Along with the drawing, the...
Curated OER
Does My hair Disrupt Your Learning?
Students use the internet to research ways to save and earn money. They interview bankers and financial counselors to discover different types of investments. Students create public service announcements to inform their classmates of...
Curated OER
Check Out Community Preparedness
Students research storm preparedness in local community, identify ways citizens are notified of impending weather emergencies, contact city administrators to discuss disaster plan and whether it has ever been implemented, and interview...
Curated OER
Gordon Parks:First Survival, Then Success
Have your class examine the work of Gordan Parks. They determine how Park's childhood in Kansas inspired his artwork as they analyze his writings and photographs. Students complete the provided worksheets as they compare, contrast, and...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Fluency: Letter-Sound Correspondence, Letter-Sound Mix-Up
Scholars time each other as they work through a sheet of all 26 letters. They test each other to see how many letters sounds they can identify in one minute.
Curated OER
Kindergarten Numbers and Number Sense
Twelve math lessons take kindergartners through the process of number sense and counting. The skills range from counting to ten, filling out ten frames, indicating ordinal position of an object, and counting by fives and tens to one...
Virginia Department of Education
Practical Problems Involving Decimals
After discussing decimals and "going shopping" in the classroom, young mathematicians are given four practical word problems that require them to estimate their answers, given specific information. The highlight of the activity is...
Virginia Department of Education
Mystery Anions
Lost an electron? You should keep an ion them. Young chemists learn qualitative analysis in the second instructional activity of an 11-part chemistry series. After observing reactions of simple salts, the teacher provides pupils...
Virginia Department of Education
Osmosis, Diffusion, and Active Transport
No, it really is okay to play with your food! Emerging scientists manipulate popcorn, eggs, and other household objects as they demonstrate multiple cellular processes. The activity, capable of modifications, is designed to reflect...
Teach Engineering
Android App Development
Building an accelerometer app for your Android device. Groups develop an app that uses the accelerometer on an Android device. The purpose of the activity is to reinforce the programming design. The post activity assessment challenges...
Indiana Department of Education
Voting: It's Not a Spectator Sport!
Why is it important to vote? Who is eligible to vote? Why is it that some eligible voters do not vote? Class members conduct interviews with adults and other school mates before researching the eligibility requirements for their state,...
Virginia Department of Education
Solve for the Unknown
How can shapes help solve literal equations? Scholars first learn to replace variables with shapes to aid in solving literal equations. A worksheet of practice problems helps hone the skill.
Virginia Department of Education
Lines and Angles
Explore angle relationships associated with transversals. Pupils construct parallel lines with a transversal and find the measures of the angles formed. They figure out how the different angles are related before constructing...
Virginia Department of Education
Special Right Triangles and Right Triangle Trigonometry
Right triangles are so special! Use special right triangles to discover the trigonometric ratios. Pairs construct special right triangles and find the values of the ratios of the sides. In the process, they discover the ratios stay the...
Virginia Department of Education
Organizing Topic: Data Analysis
Learners engage in six activities to lead them through the process of conducting a thorough analysis of data. Pupils work with calculating standard deviations and z-scores, finding the area under a normal curve, and sampling...
Virginia Department of Education
Box-and-Whisker Plots
The teacher demonstrates how to use a graphing calculator to create box-and-whisker plots and identify critical points. Small groups then create their own plots and analyze them and finish by comparing different sets of data using box...
Virginia Department of Education
Integers: Multiplication and Division
Rules are meant to be broken ... but not integer multiplication and division rules. Learners use chips to model integer multiplication and division. The results of the activity help them develop integer rules for these operations.
Virginia Department of Education
Balanced
Bring balance to your lesson plans with an activity that asks individuals to solve one-step linear equations with inverse operations. Balance scales help learners understand the concept of isolating the variable.
Curated OER
What Did it Look Like When Europe Met America?
Learners view the film 'Black Robe,' which further develop students' abilities to see an event or era of history from multiple perspectives. After the movie, they utilize worksheets imbedded in this plan to write about what they've seen.
Curated OER
Oliver Twist Goes to Hollywood
How does Oliver Twist, the novel written by Charles Dickens, compare with its screenplay adaptation? Although the activity doesn't require learners to have read the novel, the similarities and differences of the highlighted passages...
Curated OER
"Spelldown" by Becky Mushko
Learners read Spelldown, by Becky Mushko and consider how it portrays the Appalachian community. They define and discuss vocabulary presented in the story and write a comparison/contrast paper analyzing two of the story's characters. The...