West Contra Costa Unified School District
Expository Writing in Math
Pupils engage in an activity where one partner reads directions while the other follows those directions to complete a math task (such as bisecting an angle). As a reflection, they examine products to see what information the best...
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Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois: The Problem of Negro Leadership
Students focus on the problem of African American leadership throughout American history. In groups, they research the life and works of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois and how they worked to promote the need for African American...
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5 W Questions
Second graders practice asking the 5 W questions by reading a Boxcar Children book. In this journalism lesson, 2nd graders read a single story from the Boxcar Children series and answer the 5 W's about each specific chapter. Students...
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Student And Teacher Behaviors In Science Classrooms
Students work in cooperative learning groups and respond to cases involving ethical choices by students and teachers in science classrooms. They create and submit additional cases and questions for use throughout the school year.
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D.E.W. (Drop Everything and Write!)
Students gather, determine validity and reliability of, analyze and organize information. They employ the most effective format for purpose and audience. Students write fully developed paragraphs that have details and information...
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Notable Nebraskan Research and Student Presentations
Fourth graders explore notable Nebraska. In this instructional activity on the history of Nebraska, 4th graders will use primary sources to research people of events from Nebraska's history. Students will create a presentation to share...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
From Ben’s Pen to Our Lives
What would Ben do? Jumping off from the pseudonymous letters Ben Franklin fooled his older brother into publishing when he was still a teenager, young literary lovers dive into acting, writing, and addressing a local issue with wit and...
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Choose Your Words Wisely
Improve word choice! Writers use dictionaries and thesauruses to aid them in choosing exciting words to incorporate in their writing. They rewrite sentences and practice identifying words that can be replaced using a better word. Flip...
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Capitalization and Punctuation
First and second graders explore writing conventions. They add question marks or periods to the end of teacher generated sentences on sentence strips. They locate punctuation marks in poems and write original sentences using appropriate...
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Fish, Fish: Teaching K Students About Things That Live in the Sea
Students participate in activities designed to help them connect the words to the animals they are studying. Octopus is reinforced through playing a game, "Octopus Tag." Students play a cooperation game of passing bean bags from student...
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Twelfth Night: The K-W-H-L Strategy
Readers of Twelfth Night use a KWHL chart to record information about what they know about Shakespeare's play, what they want to find out, how they plan on finding this information, and what they have learned or still want to learn about...
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The Old Man and the Sea: The K-W-H-L Strategy
Make note of what readers know, what to know, and have learned during a unit on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. As class members read the book, they jot down their ideas on a KWHL chart, and consider what they have learned at...
Teach with Movies
Teaching Students to Write a Narrative
Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a...
Novelinks
Man's Search for Meaning: K-W-H-L Strategy
Prior to reading Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, class members use the provided worksheet to list what they know about the Holocaust, what they want to know, and how they will find the information they seek. After completing...
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The Glass Menagerie: K‐W‐H‐L Strategy
Readers of Tennessee Williams' award winning memory play, The Grass Menagerie, will be neither disappointed nor discouraged by this prereading strategy that asks learners to consider what they know about Williams and his play, what they...
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Wildwood Dancing: K-W-H-L Reading Strategy On Prejudice
As part of a study of Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing, class members create a KWHL chart listing what they know, what the want to know, how they will find information, and what they have learned about prejudice.
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Intro to Pronouns
Sixth graders are able to identify personal pronouns and understand their function. They are able to use personal pronouns correctly as subjects and objects in sentences. Then they look at sentences given by the teacher, and they list...
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Introduce /W/
Students say the /w/ sound, following teacher modeling. In this phonics instructional activity, students select the letter w each time it appears in a set of 12 letters and practice saying its sound, remaining silent when another letter...
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The Hobbit
Students list W.H Auden's six characteristics of a quest story. They say what is meant by a "metaphorical quest." Pupils discuss some differences between symbolism and allegory. Students indicate how Bilbo Baggins's adventures changed...
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The Decision to Go to War
High schoolers examine President Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq. They work together to discuss a topic related to this given to them by their teacher. They answer questions to complete the lesson.
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Modern African Art and Artisans
High schoolers are explained the difference between artists and artisans. They discuss some of the common themes among artisans, such as traditions, materials, process, and inspiration. Students descsribe other modern-day African...
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Phonics Instructional Routine: Read and Write Words with Consonant Digraphs
Use consonant digraphs to introduce learners to word patterns and high frequency words. They observe a chart with the digraphs /sh/, /ch/, /th/, and /wh/. After listening to each of these phonemes, scholars watch as the teacher...
Science 4 Inquiry
Musical Vibes with Palm Pipes
Ancient people used musical pipes as early as the third millennium BCE. Young scientists explore the workings of musical pipes to better understand the relationship with frequency, length of pipe, and sound waves. They determine the...
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The Bill of Rights
In groups, learners review one of four selected Supreme Court cases. The whole class watches a video introducing the four cases, and then small groups dive into Internet research in an attempt to write a two-paragraph summary of the...