Virginia Department of Education
Exponents and Radicals
What is that fraction doing as an exponent? Fun math games prompt learners to practice evaluating radical expressions and expressions containing rational exponents, both in groups and individually.
Curated OER
New Gun Control Politics: A Whimper, Not a Bang
Using an article from The New York Times, students answer discussion questions about gun control. They are divided into four groups to research different standpoints on gun control, including the Executive Office, Congress, Gun...
TED-Ed
Lessons from Auschwitz: The Power of Our Words
Some words are best left unspoken. Words matter, according to Benjamin Zander, conductor, teacher, and lecturer. To illustrate his point, Zander recounts a story told to him by a survivor of Auschwitz. As a result of her experience...
What So Proudly We Hail
The Meaning of America: Self-Command
Even for one of the most accomplished men in American history, there was room for improvement. Challenge high schoolers to use Benjamin Franklin's Project for Moral Perfection to analyze text, make inferences, connect to historical...
Virginia Department of Education
Integers: Addition and Subtraction
Young mathematicians construct their own understanding of integers with an inquiry-based math lesson. Using colored chips to represent positive and negative numbers, children model a series of addition and subtraction problems as...
Learning for Life
Overcoming Poor Decisions
Help your learners develop the ability to recognize poor decisions, make necessary changes, and learn valuable lessons from their mistakes through scenario analysis and discussion with their peers.
Virginia Department of Education
Three Types of Rocks
Rock out with the second installment of a five-part series on earth materials and processes. Your budding geologists make observations of given rock samples and posit classification systems for rocks. They then learn about the...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1: Unit 3, Lesson 14
After watching the scene from Romeo + Juliet in which Juliet argues with her parents because she does not want to marry Paris, groups do a close reading of Act 4, scene 1, lines 44-88, examining the word choices in the conversation...
Virginia Department of Education
States of Matter
Scientists have been studying exothermic reactions before they were cool. The lesson begins with a discussion and a demonstration of heat curves. Scholars then determine the heat of fusion of ice and the heat needed to...
Virginia Department of Education
Molar Volume of a Gas
What is a chemist's favorite plant? Stoichiome Tree! Scholars produce hydrogen gas by reacting magnesium with hydrochloric acid. Then they calculate the molar volume of the gas produced before answering assessment questions.
Virginia Department of Education
Laboratory Safety and Skills
Avoiding lab safety rules will not give you super powers. The lesson opens with a demonstration of not following safety rules. Then, young chemists practice their lab safety while finding the mass of each item in a mixture and trying to...
Virginia Department of Education
Logic and Conditional Statements
If there is a conditional statement, then there is a hypothesis and conclusion. Pupils learn how to identify the parts of conditional statements. Class members continue to work with conditional statements and rewrite them in their many...
Virginia Department of Education
Linear Curve of Best Fit
Is foot length to forearm length a linear association? The class collects data of fellow scholars' foot length and the length of their forearms. They plot the data and find a line of best fit. Using that line, they make predictions of...
Virginia Department of Education
Absolute Value
Your birthday can be more than just about presents; it can even teach about absolute value. The class investigates absolute value as the distance from zero on a number line. Plotting birth months and comparing each birth month to July...
Virginia Department of Education
Properties of Operations
Explore the definitions of algebraic properties through a hands-on activity. Individuals cut and paste examples and match them to the correct properties. After examining the provided examples, pupils create examples of their own.
Facing History and Ourselves
Defining Human Rights
Eleanor Roosevelt leads the drive to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To begin a study of universal rights, class members create a definition of a right and compare it to the 1947 version. They then investigate Eleanor's...
North Carolina Consortium for Middle East Studies
The Importance of Holocaust Remembrance
Designed as the culminating activity after a unit study of the Holocaust, class members assume the voice of a world leader, write a speech, and participate in a simulation of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust.
Penguin Books
An Educator's Guide to the Works of Laurie Halse Anderson
Laurie Halse Anderson tackles challenging topics for teens. An educator's guide shares activities for many of her novels such as Prom, Shout, and Wintergirls. Questions, perfect to use as either discussion or as essay prompts, accompany...
Curated OER
Snowman in Winter Sequence Writing
Young scholars develop a creative snowman using step-by-step stickers. They write a short story about the snowman they have created, explaining the sequence they used to create their snowman. Students present their completed story in...
Curated OER
Letter Writing
Third graders write to themselves or to known audiences, share news, explore new ideas, and record notes. They identify that holidays are days that people set aside to recognize a person or event that has made a great impression....
Virginia Department of Education
A Mystery to Solve
Investigate field properties of real numbers. Scholars use a table for a given operation to determine the identity element. They use the same table to find a missing value in an equation.
Curated OER
Descriptive Writing
Fifth graders develop compositions on self-selected topics. They choose a topic based upon their ability. Individual pupils earn points for each activity completed. Students use descriptive writing as they support their composition...
Curated OER
Writing: Peer Revision
Students drill and practice writing/reading skills through the peer-editing process while writing an autobiography. They become more comfortable sharing their writings with others, offering feedback comments and encourage others to work...
Curated OER
"Memories of Mom" Memento
Students brainstorm a list of writing topics for a "Memories of Mom" book, choose one of the topics as the subject of a daily essay and combine a week of daily essays into a book to give their mothers for Mother's Day.