Curated OER
Get a Leg Up
Traveling through space is an amazing experience, but it definitely takes a toll on the body. After reading an article and watching a brief video, learners perform an experiment that simulates the effects of zero gravity on the...
Music Fun
Instruments to Trace Color and Label
Handbells and castanets. Triangles and timpani. Trumpets and trombones. As part of their study of instruments, young musicians label, trace and color the parts of seven instruments. Also included in the resource packet are tracing...
Captain Planet Foundation
Square Foot Fall Garden
First graders learn the basic needs of plants and identify geometric shapes while planting a fall garden. Combining math and science in one instructional activity, the resource guides kids through starting their class garden as they...
Cal Recycle
Conserving Natural Resources
Trying to plan an engaging elementary science unit on natural resources? Conserve your energy! This five-part series of lessons and hands-on activities has exactly what you need to teach young scholars about the importance of conservation.
Curated OER
Games on Echolocation
Get a little batty with life science! This fun simulation game replicates how bats use echolocation to hunt moths in their native Hawaiian habitat. After creating blind folds and discussing some basic principles of echolocation, students...
Curated OER
Government Mobile
Fourth graders, after studying the three branches of state government and gathering together a variety of art materials, create a mobile explaining all three branches of the government. They display their mobiles inside the classroom for...
Beauty and Joy of Computing
Combining List Operations
Use list operations to modify an earlier version of Tic Tac Toe. The fourth lab in a series of five has pupils combine list operations to build more powerful operations. They take a project from a previous unit and enhance it to keep...
Channel Islands Film
Cache: Lesson Plan 2 - Grades 4-6
Class members will dig this activity that has them trying their hand at recovering artifacts. Groups are assigned a section of a sandbox, carefully uncover the artifacts in their section, and then develop theories about who might...
Classics for Kids
Listen to the Music
Different pieces of music can elicit different emotions from audience members. A quick tempo can make you feel happy, while a largo piece may bring out a melancholy temperament. Elementary musicians learn more about the instruments...
Curated OER
The Big Circle
Students explore geography by participating in a mapping activity. In this concentric ring instructional activity, students utilize a poster board, string and markers to identify their current location within the entire world. Students...
Curated OER
Pepperoni Pizza Booklet
Provide a creative and interesting way for youngsters to practice identifying the numbers 1 to 10. They affix pepperonis to 10 pizzas to describe the numbers 1 to 10. This is a great and visual way for students to practice identifying...
Curated OER
"ty" number
Second graders encounter the need to assess the code in English for tens is that the word ends in "-ty." They explore the meaning of two or three digit whole numbers to realize that the meaning of words like sixty can be decoded by...
Curated OER
Musical Instrument Families
Using graphics, and an easy-to-understand format, this resource outlines the different kinds of instruments and their characteristics. This presentation could be used as an introduction to instruments for students getting ready to...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Invertebrates
Stringed instruments play as viewers explore ocean invertebrates through nine nicely flowing slides. The captions describe the eight phyla: cnidaria, flatworms, roundworms, segmented worms, mollusks, arthropods,and enchinoderms. During...
DiscoverE
A Clever Way to Water
Your plants will survive without you. Scholars create a device that can water plants using a coiled string. Along the way, they learn about adhesion and cohesion of water. The challenge is to keep the plants alive for at least a week.
Curated OER
Estimate Length
Without measuring, can estimators determine which string is the longest? The shortest? There are two sets of strings here for learners to evaluate, circling the shortest in the first set and the longest in the second. Next, they eyeball...
Curated OER
Earth Science Regents: The Ellipse
Starting with the instructions to draw an ellipse, and with great pictures, this sheet should help your pupils learn the shapes and measurements involved. Using push pins and string, your class can discover the axis and focus points...
Physics Classroom
All Work and No Play Lab
Don't let the term, "slotted wood board" detract you from the value of this experiment. Class members tie a string to a cart and, with even horizontal force, drag it up an inclined plane. The objective is to compare the work done with...
Curated OER
Using a Round-O-Meter to Estimate
Explore the concept of rounding numbers to the nearest dollar or dime. Youngsters use a "round-o-meter" to determine which direction to round a number. They make round-o-meters out of a piece of paper, a piece of string, and a paper clip.
Curated OER
Action-Reaction! Rocket
Students construct a rocket from a balloon propelled along a guide string. They use this model to learn about Newton's three laws of motion, examining the effect of different forces on the motion of the rocket. They measure the distance...
Curated OER
Rubber Band Banza
Third graders review ideas about sound and vibration to make their own stringed instrument. They review what a pictograph and bar graph are. Pupils conduct a survey within the classroom to choose the four favorite string instruments and...
Curated OER
The Ellipse
This is a practical sheet with the instructions to draw a set of ellipses. After following the diagrams, there are ten questions to complete, with calculations expected for alternate orbits and comparisons related to actual planets in...
Curated OER
Strum Along
Students engage in a instructional activity which takes something constructed by the class, that would be normally classified as just sound, then work together to make what can be perceived to be music. Students construct a basic...
Mr Gym
Nuke Walk
Take a look at this cooperative learning activity. The goal of the activity is to transport nuclear waste (a cup of water) from point A to point B without spilling the toxic waste. There are several ideas given here for things to use to...