National Endowment for the Humanities
Lesson 2: What Has Happened in the White House?
Working in small groups, or individually, learners are given images of events that took place at the White House. They study the image and research that time in history to better understand how the White House has been affected by...
Curated OER
What Was That All About?
Through direct instruction, the teacher demonstrates how to identify the main idea and supporting details of a text when creating a summary. As a class, read a paragraph, highlighting relevant information and crossing out extraneous...
Curated OER
Bird Banners
Students, after researching the internet for information about native bird species, create an informational banner. They follow all the directions from their copy of "Bird Banner Guidelines" and complete this task in groups of four or five.
Curated OER
The Ultimate Survivor Using Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
What items would you need to survive if you were stranded in a remote place? Using chapter 10 of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, middle-schoolers work through a Six Trait writing activity to create a story about their own survival in a similar...
Curated OER
Easy Access: Creating Annotated Versions of News Articles
How can news coverage be made more accessible for teens? Model for your class how to use technology to annotate news stories containing unfamiliar references that hinder their interest in and understanding of a news story. Use the...
Scholastic
Writing Letters to the Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets
To celebrate National Poetry Month, young writers focus on the role letter writing has played in the development of poets. They begin by journaling three to five associations to a writing prompt that requires them to identify their...
Roads to Success
Introduction to Team Building
What can working in a group trying to build the tallest tower possible using only tape and drinking straws get you? A great opportunity for developing collaborative team-building skills!
Illustrative Mathematics
Guess My Number
Make a game out of solving equations. This particular activity works well for pairs of learners. Follow the instructions to have player one pick a number and player two verbally give an equation. Participants need to make sense of a...
iCivics
Why Government?
Why do people create governments? Where did we get our ideas about government? This is a fantastic introductory lesson for your American government class that begins by reviewing the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in...
California Academy of Science
Our Hungry Planet: Design Thinking Challenge
Scholars investigate an issue associated with food systems and design their own solutions. Working collaboratively, they follow each step in the design process to complete the 10th lesson of the 13-part Our Hungry Planet series.
Curated OER
Map Coordinates: Monkey Map
Here's an engaging, meaningful, and clever lesson on map skills for elementary schoolers. Pupils combine story writing with mapping skills to create an original piece of work. They utilize a worksheet embedded in the plan to guide them...
Curated OER
Chopping Cubes
Middle schoolers work in small groups to make various geometric solids with Play-Doh. They use fishing line to make cuts and observe the shapes of the cross-sections. Pupils complete an assessment in which they answer questions such as:...
Curated OER
Introduction to Ozone Reading Activity
Simple, but suitable, this instructional activity gives mini-meteorologists a glimpse at ozone in the atmosphere. By reading an article, they find that ozone in the stratosphere is vital to life, but ozone in the troposphere is...
Curated OER
Dragonfly
The speed of a dragonfly brings math into the real world as your learners collaboratively see the value in calculating unit rates in direct proportion problems. This six-phase lesson encourages you, as the teacher, to only ask questions...
Dream of a Nation
Group Presentation Assignment
Rather than waiting for the world to change, encourage your class members to become agents of change with a project that asks groups to select an issue found in Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America....
Curriculum Corner
Guest Teacher Plans (Grade 2)
Be prepared the next time you're in need of a substitute with a daily plan equipped with an assortment of activities covering subjects math, reading, word work, writing, and science.
EngageNY
Modeling Using Similarity
How do you find the lengths of items that cannot be directly measured? The 13th installment in a series of 16 has pupils use the similarity content learned in an earlier resource to solve real-world problems. Class members determine...
Read Write Think
Poetry Portfolios: Using Poetry to Teach Reading
Over the course of five periods, scholars create a poetry portfolio. They begin with a reading of the poem, Firefly. With a focus on vocabulary, learners reread the poem then look for sight words and other skills.
Workforce Solutions
Discover Your Interests
For many high schoolers, what they want to be when they grow up can be very intimidating. Here's an activity that gets them thinking about their interests and how they might connect these interests to future jobs. After watching a short...
Curated OER
Dry Ice: Simply Sublime
A fascinating instructional activity on states of matter is here for your young scientists. Dry ice is used to challenge learners preconceived notions about how solids work. They discover all sorts of interesting facts about states of...
Curated OER
Collage to Writing
Practice expository and creative writing with your class. Pupils use magazines to find pictures, cut them out, and create a collage. This work of art is then used as a writing prompt. They describe the collage in either a creative or...
Curated OER
Jewish Folk Song: Ya Ba Bom
Singing is a wonderful way to express an idea of any kind. This lesson is written expressly for use in directing a high school chorus. They work on using four-part harmony, expression, and melodic intervals while singing a Jewish folk...
Curated OER
Mystery of Mirrors: Discovery Stations
Hands-on stations in which groups of primary learners experience what mirrors can do provide opportunities for experimenting and authentic discovery. Recording their observations in complete sentences seems age-inappropriate. Drawing...
Curated OER
Spinning My Tale
Begin writing personal narratives in this writing lesson. Junior high writers start by writing a journal about their favorite holiday. They read a book at their skill level and use graphic organizers to record their ideas for writing....