For the Teachers
Story Strips Sequencing
What happens next? Work on story sequence with a instructional activity that prompts kids to put a story back in order. Additionally, they discuss what would happen if one event was missing from the sequence.
Illustrative Mathematics
Number of the Day
Daily routines not only help to manage classrooms, they can also provide learners with rich opportunities for learning. This activity supports young learners in developing their number sense by counting up the school days on a class...
Curated OER
A Creative Presentation
Bring writing to life with this lesson in which elementary and middle schoolers create a display of the imagery they identify in a series of Gary Paulsen books. They read the suggested materials, identify imagery and descriptive...
Curated OER
Sequencing Stories
Students explore dramatization. In this literacy fluency and drama lesson, students listen to the story Mop Top by Don Freeman and add related sounds at the appropriate times. Students role play, pantomime, and add sounds to create...
Curated OER
Cloze Instruction And Herringbone Technique
Learners sort out important information and create a visual framework for reviewing in the future. They organize a large quantity of information thus helping with learning and remembering details, cause and effect, comparison and...
Curated OER
Who Is It?/Who Done It?
Students conduct an experiment that allows them to assess individual differences in random DNA sequences and apply those differences when solving a forensic problem. After discussing the polymerase chain reaction and its use to identify...
Curated OER
The Use of Signal Words in Writing
Students examine the use of transition or signal word to create good paragraph organization.
Curated OER
Combining Words with Art
Third graders make an accordion-fold book, review the vocabulary of visual art and are introduced to calligraphy. They plan a story using a sequence of words and sentences.
Curated OER
Australian Aboriginal Art And Storytelling
Students explore Aboriginal storytelling traditions through the spoken word and through visual culture. They listen to stories of the Dreamtime told by the Aboriginal people and investigate Aboriginal storytelling in contemporary dot...
Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District
Parts of Speech Pronouns: Building Blocks of Grammar
Pronouns are the most helpful parts of speech! Model the ways that interrogative, indefinite, personal, and demonstrative pronouns can specify meaning and enhance writing with a hands-on activity.
Illustrative Mathematics
Modeling with a Linear Function
Here is a well-designed resource that provides five yes-or-no questions which model different situations with linear functions. It makes a good pre-test for the beginning of the unit. The purpose is to elicit common misconceptions of...
Curated OER
Jack O' Lantern, Jack O' Lantern
First graders listen to the story, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear." students listen to a poem, "Jack O' Lantern, Jack O' Lantern," and take turns retelling it. They draw the poem in correct sequence on paper to retell it.
Curated OER
Controlling the Code: Molecules at Word
Students investigate how cells determine which genes will be expressed and which will be silent. In this genetics instructional activity, students use on-line resources to complete a worksheet and gather information about gene...
Curated OER
Reading Skills: Chunking
Prepare advanced English learners and low-level readers for the reading demands of post-secondary education with skill of chunking. Readers learn to make meaning from phrases rather than individual words, helping them to read more...
Curated OER
Comprehension Questions: The City of Ember, Chapter 20
Comprehension questions for the last chapter of Jeanne DuPrau's book The City of Ember assess factual recall, sequencing skills, and inference about the text. Note: One question about point of view is based on a sentence not related to...
Novelinks
The Dark Is Rising: Guided Imagery
To launch a reading of The Dark is Rising, the second novel in Susan Cooper's award winning contemporary fantasy novel sequence for young adults, class members engage in a guided imagery exercise that asks them to visualize the...
Curated OER
November - Poetry
First graders respond to poetry through a group activity. They interact with rhythm and tempo in poetry through an oral presentation. They experiment with choral speaking. They discuss Thanksgiving family traditions.
Curated OER
Investigating Evolutionary Questions: Bats, Whales, Reptiles, Birds, Animal Classification
Students are guided through a process in which three questions are addressed by retrieving beta hemoglobin sequences from online databases, and using online tools to compare those sequences in student-selected animals.
Curated OER
Bottle Top Sentences
Students practice language. In this vocabulary expansion lesson, students match words on a sentence strip. They work independently to recognize and correlate words in a sentence to individual words out of sequence. This lesson includes...
Curated OER
Squirrel Islands
In this adaptations worksheet, young scholars read about 3 species that have changed over time to adapt to their environment. Students design a squirrel that has adapted to an island habitat that young scholars are assigned. They...
Curated OER
Food Chain: what's for dinner?
Fourth graders identify where foods came from and sequence a food chain. In this food chain lesson, 4th graders define vocabulary related to food chains and order a food chain. Students follow the energy of a food chain. Students...
Curated OER
Dancing Number Sentences
Learners explore how dance can be infused with mathematics. In this art and mathematics lesson, students recognize how the ABA dance form is similar to a math number sentence. Learners create a dance choosing dance words to represent...
Curated OER
Music
Third graders learn the song "Blow the Man Down" and know that it is a work song. They differentiate between loud and soft singing. They use body movements to reinforce the recognition of music in 3/4 time.
Curated OER
Timelines
Students discover the look and purpose of timelines. After the teacher reads them a story, they discuss the events that occurred during King Tutankhamen's life. They create a timeline of his life making sure to put them in the correct...