Curated OER
Mapping Where Animals Live
What type of reptiles live in New York State? This lesson gets the class thinking about what factors determine where particular animals live. They analyze the Hudson Valley environment, identify specific reptile and amphibian...
Curated OER
The Groups and Electron Dot Diagrams
It's all in the family with this presentation! The halogen, alkali metal, and noble gas families are introduced to young chemists along with characteristic properties and colorful diagrams of electron shells. Viewers are then taught how...
Curated OER
The Glory That Was Greece: A Test
Did your class just finish a unit on Greek life, culture, and conquest? If you think they know everything there is to know about Ancient Greece, then put them to the test with this exam, which contains thirty multiple choice questions.
Curated OER
Shakespeare 2000
Young thespians can try their hand at writing a script and acting out a scene, while gaining a deeper understanding of the universal topics presented in Shakespeare's wide array of plays. Begin the lesson by conducting a compare and...
Curated OER
Show, Don't Tell: Details to Make Writing Come Alive
After each of three viewings of a 45-second video, aspiring writers employ vivid adjectives and precise, strong verbs to "show, don't tell." First they compose a single sentence, then three, and finally a five-sentence paragraph. Repeat...
Curated OER
Radio News
Part of a larger unit from the Media Awareness Network on media literacy, this particular lesson plan focuses on the medium of news radio. Small groups participate in discussions on their radio listening habits as well as the...
Curated OER
Great Depression
Examine the Great Depression with your pupils. First you'll discuss the causes of the Great Depression, such as the stock market crash of 1929. Then, you'll examine key facts, like the Dust Bowl, the New Deal, and economic recovery.
Curated OER
Exposure: A Poem by Wilfred Owen
Here’s a great way to engage your pupils in poetry analysis. Show your class this student-produced, PowerPoint analysis of Wilfred Owen’s “Exposure.” Have your class critique the strengths and weakness of the presentation. (They are sure...
Curated OER
Addition Practice
Give your mathematicians a leg up on simple addition using this activity with visual aids. Similar to counting cubes, each single-digit addend is accompanied by a corresponding number of colored squares. The two colors are joined where...
Curated OER
Alphabet Printing Practice
Your learners can create their own ABC books as they practice basic printing skills! Each page is provided here, and includes a picture of something beginning with that letter. Young writers examine example letters, then practice both...
Curated OER
Classifying Objects into Group
Classifying and sorting are great skills all kids need to know. They cut out each of the six images provided, then label each of two boxes. They glue the images in the appropriate box. Answers are provided.
Curated OER
"Some Excellent Dumb Discourse:" Caliban as native American
Explore The Tempest and how language and power are intertwined in the play. Through a series of questions (provided) and an intense activity that has groups translate Caliban's speech into American Sign Language, learners recognize...
Curated OER
Pride and Prejudice: Directed Reading Thinking Activity
Can you judge a book by its cover? Decide who and what Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is about with a prediction activity. Before reading the first three chapters of the book, kids answer questions based on their interpretation of the...
Curated OER
Research Using Technology
Pupils receive an index card, and they write down jobs and hobbies that interest them. Then, they get together in groups and are assigned the task of researching the jobs and hobbies that are of the most interest to the entire group....
California Academy of Science
Make your own Antelope Horns!
What are those horns for anyway? Little ones discuss the shape, texture, and purpose of horns found on animals such as the deer and antelope. They then pair up and make their own set of antelope horns to wear while visiting a local...
Curated OER
The Writing Process- Prewriting Using Collaboration
After a class discussion on strategies pupils can use to pre-write, learners are given a topic which they use to guide them in selecting a book to read. Everyone uses a worksheet, embedded in the plan, to write down information from the...
Joslyn Art Museum
Diego Rivera: Masterworks from the Museo de Arte del Estado de Veracruz
Being inspired by the art of Diego Rivera, young artists use fresco techniques to create art as a group. They research Rivera's life and art, then get into small groups to use wet plaster and acrylics to experience fresco painting....
Curated OER
What Shape is That?
Each country or group of people has created special places of worship. Children read a story about religious buildings and architecture and then make clay models of the buildings they like the best. The lesson has been written to...
Curated OER
Recombinant DNA - Electrophoresis Demonstration and Problem
Suitable for an AP Biology class, the lab found here has teen bioengineers working with plasmids to clone DNA. If you have not done a similar lab, the instructions may be rather difficult to follow. Both the teacher and learner...
Curated OER
The Periodic Table Game
First, beginning chemists assemble a large periodic table of elements. Then, they play a game in which they roll dice, move a marker along the elements, and collect pennies according to the number of valence electrons of the element that...
Smarter Balanced
Poetry
How does poetry differ from other forms of writing? Class members view two writing samples, decide which one is a poem, and then identify the criteria they used to distinguish between the two samples.
Art Institute of Chicago
Act It Out
Examine two works of art and use these pieces as inspiration for dialogues. The whole class discusses Renoir's Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise and Toulouse-Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge. Then, in groups of either three or ten, pupils...
Curated OER
Shizuko’s Daughter: Discussion Web
Is Yuki a selfish character? Analyze her motivation and behavior during a unit on Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori. Readers fill out two sides of a graphic organizer with reasons why or why not she is selfish, and then come up with a...
It's About Time
Energy from Coal
If plastic is derived from fossil fuels and fossil fuels come from dead dinosaurs, does that mean that plastic dinosaurs are made from real dinosaurs? This lesson goes into depth about coal and other fossil fuels. First the instructor...