Curated OER
Into the Bat Cave
Students explore the lives of bats. In this bat lesson plan, students participate in up 6 activities that focus on bats and build their background knowledge about the nocturnal mammals.
Curated OER
Kid Lit Crit
Students explore different types of student literature; they then write their own fiction pieces, in either fantasy/adventure or memoir/realism style.
Consortium for Ocean Science Exploration and Engagement (COSEE)
Understanding the Food Web
Building on prior knowledge of the pervious lesson plan in the series, pupils explain the previous lesson plan to each other. Then they write a simple guide for a young child to read on the same topic.
Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment
Concept Muraling
Concept muraling helps learners improve their comprehension of a text by giving them a way to organize their understanding of the key concepts in that text. Introduce readers to this process with a carefully scaffolded lesson that models...
Idaho Coalition
The Hunger Games: Gender Empowerment
The odds are in your favor that your pupils will love this lesson that uses The Hunger Games to launch a study of gender empowerment, as well as the influence of social constructs of gender. Groups discuss how Katniss Everdeen and Peeta...
Curated OER
Real or hoax?
Seventh graders brainstorm a list of criteria that makes a webpage useful for research and not useful for research. They complete the activity, "Real or Hoax," and discuss fiction and non fiction stories and determine which websites are...
Curated OER
Learning Activities: Magic Words
Students use poetry to compare and contrast humans and frogs.
Curated OER
Searching for life
Students explore the possibility of life on Mars and what that might look like. In this planetary instructional activity students complete several activities on looking for life on Mars.
Curated OER
"War of the Worlds": A Broadcast Re-Creation
Why did Orson Welles' 1938 Broadcast of a adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds cause such a panic? To answer this question, class members listen to the original broadcast and research the panic that resulted. They then engage...
Curated OER
Breaking News English: Cremation
In this cremation worksheet, students read the article, answer true and false questions, complete synonym matching, complete phrase matching, complete a gap fill, answer short answer questions, answer discussion questions, write, and...
Curated OER
Back to the Past
What was the Untied States like in 1938? What were the concerns of Americans in the post World War I era? What were their fears? What were their sources of news and entertainment? To understand the reaction to Orson Welles' radio...
Curated OER
Exploring Space Fact and Fiction Unit: Creating Space Fiction
Students create stories about imaginary planets.
Curated OER
Science: Coral Reef Food Pyramid
Students construct numbers pyramids using fictional data from a coral reef. they tally the numbers of carnivores, herbivores, and producers. Students next build a pyramid shape in which they put their numbers of producers, herbivores,...
Curated OER
Non-Fiction Read-aloud
Learners listen to the reading of a book about the area of science they are currently studying.
Curated OER
Bird Stories: Fact or Fiction
Students evaluate/distinguish scientific fact from fiction. They discuss similarities and differences in the life cycles of various birds. Student use the Internet as a research tool.
Curated OER
Science Summaries are the Bomb!
Fifth graders read a dissection article and complete close reading activities for the text. In this reading skills lesson, 5th graders read an interactive frog dissection article in teams. Student teams complete a KWL chart and...
Roald Dahl
The Twits - Mrs Twit Gets a Stretching
A cork, a rubber snake, and a bucket of mud may not seem like the best materials for washing a car, but they are in The Twits. The fifth lesson in an 11-part unit designed to accompany The Twits by Roald Dahl has readers role play...
Curated OER
Entomologists on Safari: On the Hunt for Mosquitoes
Students research about the symptoms of West Nile Virus. In this health lesson, students play the role of scientists investigating mosquito activity in a fictional community. They suggest ways to prevent West Nile virus infection by...
Curated OER
Surviving Extremes
Students examine the potential health dangers of mountain climbing in high altitudes and deep-sea diving. They write a health and safety column for a fictional magazine about extreme outdoor sports that explains the risks involved in...
Curated OER
The Life Cycle of the Butterfly
First graders, after listening to fictional and non-fictional literature about caterpillars, and observing caterpillars from egg to butterfly, write a "biography" of a caterpillar using appropriate vocabulary and time lines.
Curated OER
Jack and the Beanstalk
Third graders read a story and grow a beanstalk. In this literature and life science lesson, the class reads "Jack and the Beanstalk," then lists fairy tale elements and write a puppet show. The students plant pinto beans and observes...
Curated OER
Gene Puzzles
Students come to understand that in sexually reproducing organisms, such as humans, typically half of the genes come from each parent.
Students examine a fictional pedigree and determine which gene is responsible for a given trait. The...
Curated OER
Devil May Care?
Students study about a deadly disease decimating the Tasmanian devil population. They research diseases that affect animals and write a fictional story about the animals they researched.
Curated OER
A Prescription for Drug Success
Students explore criticisms of the pharmaceutical drug industry. They also become aware of the difficult and lengthy process of testing new drugs by inventing fictional drugs and testing plans.