Urban Education Exchange
Lessons and Units: The Watsons go to Birmingham—1963 5TH GRADE UNIT
Get ready to read The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 with a lesson about historical fiction. Spanning several centuries, the resource prompts learners to guess the historical era of a story based on a word or phrase...
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The What and Who of Elections
As citizens living in the United States, it is our civil duty to vote. But how does the voting process work? After reading a five-paragraph passage on the basics of elections and voting, young constituents respond to 10 questions...
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Star Power
Angelina Jolie, Bono, and P. Diddy all have something in common: they use their fame to contribute to society in such a way that makes the world a better place. After reading a three-page passage on the types of causes to...
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Plymouth Colony
Read about the tumultuous beginning to the United States with an informational text passage about Colonial America. As young researchers peruse an article about the arrival of the Mayflower, the settlers' relationship to the neighboring...
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A Constitution for Kids
What better day to celebrate the US Constitution than on Constitution Day! After reading a short passage about the different understandings of habeas corpus and ex post facto, sixth graders respond to 10 multiple choice and short...
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The United States Constitution
The US Constitution is the beginning of Americans' rights. Use a five-paragraph passage to give a brief history of the US Constitution. A great last minute addition to a lesson on Constitution Day.
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First Thanksgiving Meal
Cranberries, oysters, lobster, deer, and cabbage were just a few of the foods found on the table at the First Thanksgiving. After reading a two-page passage about the historic meal, class members respond to 10 reading...
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City Autumn
Glimpse a beautiful moment through poetry with a reading comprehension activity. As sixth graders read through "City Autumn" by Joseph Moncure March, they answer ten questions about the setting, mood, vocabulary, and punctuation of...
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Fireflies in the Garden
Imagine a dark sky lit up with fireflies. Robert Frost's "Fireflies in the Garden" instills a visual in the reader's mind of a star lit sky glowing with fireflies. After reading the poem, learners compare and contrast the image the...
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Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
One of Emily Dickinson's most poignant works is the focus of a poetry analysis activity. After reading "Hope Is the Thing with Feathers," individuals answer ten multiple-choice and short-answer questions about the elements found...
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Cool to Be Kind
Make a connection between empathy and bullying with a reading passage that has readers thinking about other people's feelings. After reading, learners respond to ten reading comprehension questions involving short answer and multiple...
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The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Reinforce reading comprehension strategies and contemplate an important life lesson with a learning exercise featuring Aesop's fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf. After reading a brief passage, scholars show what they know by...
Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford
Similes Activity using Jazz (featuring Duke Ellington)
Language learners get into the swing of things with a jazzy lesson about similes. They read an article about Duke Ellington, listen to samples of his music, and then try their hand at crafting similes to describe his improvisational and...
Curated OER
Sorting into Three Groups
First graders discuss categorizing items into different groups. In this language arts lesson, 1st graders read a story, chart three categories from the book and describe examples from the book that fit in each category.
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Physical Attributes
Practice describing the physical attributes of story characters. After listening to a story, kindergartners identify each of the characters. They then draw a picture of the characters from the book.
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Main and Secondary Characters
Identify main and secondary characters from a fiction story. Kindergartners do a picture walk with the teacher, and then do the identifying on their own with another book. A good assignment for groups or a whole class to complete.
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Identifying What is Different
What is the same, what is different, and what does it all mean? Introduce the concept of identifying similarities and difference to your Kinder class using the I do, we do, you do, instructional approach. You'll provide structured...
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Actions
Students pair up and one of the students acts out an action while the other draws conclusions from their actions by drawing a picture of what they are doing. In this actions lesson plan, students play charades and guess what each other...
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Opinion
An important concept for youngsters to learn is that there is a difference between facts and opinions. Use Kirsten Hall's Animal Touch to introduce the idea that an opinion is how one feels or thinks about something and that others are...
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Identifying Facts and Forming Opinions
Kirsten Hall's animal books provide learners with an opportunity to practice forming statements of opinions and factual statements. Using sentence starters such as "I learned. . ." and "I think. . ." class members craft sentences cite a...
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Tells a Story
Students discover the concept of a biography. In this biography lesson, students read, A Picture Book of Amelia Earhart by David A. Adler. They see how biographies tell a story and then work together to identify the beginning,...
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Good and Evil Characters
What makes a character good or evil? Young readers discuss the characteristics and actions of good and evil characters in given fairy tales. They then read Snow White and discuss the characters in the story.
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Fantasy Details
Pupils identify fantasy details from a fairy tale they have read and give an explanation of how they know it is a fantasy detail. In this fantasy detail lesson plan, students make a list from the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood.
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Pictures and Photographs
Students write the facts that they learned from the photographs in the book All About Cats and Kittens. In this pictures and photographs lesson plan, students present their fact to the class and add it to the chart.