Curated OER
Producing Beats
Turn your classroom into a music studio as groups work together to determine why music sounds different when performed live versus a recording. After listening to some different music, each group picks a poem, creates a recording, and...
American Chemical Society
The Periodic Table and Energy-Level Models
Teach your class to think of electrons as tiny packets of energy that travel in waves. Through a short video and diagram, participants see how electrons are located around the nucleus of an atom. They then get into groups and try to...
Curated OER
Frame It!
Students make decorative picture frames for holiday gifts and use creative thinking skills to decorate frame patterns. They demonstrate ability in following directions.
Curated OER
Musical Phrase Completion
Pupils get to encounter simple musical notations, basic keyboarding and improvisation. Students exercise on creative thinking skills. Pupils create their own musical notes.
Curated OER
A Glimmer of Beauty: Lesson Plan
Fully analyze the elements of art and unexpected beauty in the William Merritt Chase's Still Life with a Fish. The class will examine the painting very closely, then use photography to express unexpected beauty in still life. This is a...
Perkins School for the Blind
Introduction to Scientific Inquiry
Every great scientist knows that the process of inquiry is a very important skill. Provide your learners with visual impairments with an opportunity to explore objects scientifically. They examine several pieces of fruit and generate...
Curated OER
Picture This
Give your littlest learners the opportunity to learn how to discuss, observe, and visualize. First, they determine if the image they are looking at is a photograph or a painting. Then they work together to brainstorm words that describe...
Curated OER
Map It Out
Explore how illustrations add to a story. Young learners will look at picture books to see how the pictures tell the story. They create illustrations to go with a chosen story, and then flip the activity so they have to write a story to...
National WWII Museum
A New War Weapon to Save Lives
Young historians view and analyze photos and documents from WWII that are related to blood transfusions and blood plasma. A demonstration of correct and incorrect blood donors visually shows the importance of knowing blood...
Shutterfly
Shutterfly Photo Story Lesson Plan
A reading of Peggy Parish's Amelia Bedelia launches a study of idioms. Groups then select several idioms, write the meaning of the expressions, draw or select images, and use GIMP or Photoshop to create an idiom book.
Curated OER
Ancient Aztecs
Is it a calendar? A religious symbol? A political statement? One thing for certain is that Aztec sun stone designs remain an important symbol in Mexican cultural art. Young artists craft their own Aztec Sun design incorporating ideas...
Curated OER
Building a School Model: An Academic Challenge
First and second graders explore aspects of design. They discuss and design the ideal classroom building complete with window and door placement. Additionally, students observe and note features found in neighboring classrooms as...
National Museum of the American Indian
Fritz Scholder: A Study Guide
In this engaging activity involving close analysis of abstract expressionist art, your class members will not only discover more about artist Friz Scholder's Native American art, but they will also have the opportunity to consider...
Akron Art Museum
Storytelling Resist
The illustrations of Ezra Jack Keats in The Snowy Day inspire young artists to examine shapes in illustrations and to use these shapes to create their own watercolor resist painting.
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
Westward Expansion: Image and Reality
As your young historians study Westward Expansion, practice in-depth primary source analysis with the documents and guidelines presented in this resource. They will examine a lithograph and excerpts from two letters written by a Nebraska...
Channel Islands Film
Telling Your Own Story
After watching and discussing a video on the Voyage of Cabrillo, individuals craft their own origin story and design and build an artifact they feel best represents their history.
Historical Thinking Matters
Rosa Parks: 3 Day Lesson
How can evidence and perspective challenge even the most well-known of stories? Through primary and secondary source analysis, think-alouds, and discussion, young historians evaluate the historical narrative of Rosa Parks across multiple...
Curated OER
How Many?
Establish 1:1 correspondence by counting students, first one gender, then the other. Give each child a colored cube (one color for boys, another for girls) and have small groups determine more or less and how many all together. As a...
Curated OER
Rounding and Subtracting
Common Core is all about getting your learners to open their minds and think about the why and how. This problem has them thinking about unknown numbers and their relationship with one another when we round and...
State Bar of Texas
Edgewood ISD v. Kirby
Have you ever wondered where the money comes from to pay for your school, teachers, supplies, and building? The 1989 Supreme Court case Edgewood ISD v. Kirby lays a framework for open discussion on the funding of public schools. Using a...
Curated OER
Comparing Fractions with a Different Whole
What was Bryce's mistake? Through analysis of a student work example, learners develop their own ability to compare the fractions one fourth and one half. Central to this activity is the concept that, when comparing fractions, the whole...
State Bar of Texas
Plessy v. Ferguson
Where did separate but equal originate and what does it mean? Scholars investigate the Supreme Court Case Plessy v. Ferguson. Using a short video clip, they analyze the impact the decision of legal segregation had on society in 1896....
State Bar of Texas
Schenck v. US
Freedom of speech is absolute—or is it? The Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States has learners research what free speech really looks like. A short video along with paired work creates open discussion and thought on what speech is...
Channel Islands Film
Arlington Springs Man: Lesson Plan 1
Learning to craft quality questions is a skill that can be taught. Class members use the Question Formulation Technique to learn how to create and refine both closed-ended and open-ended questions. They then view West of the West's...