Curated OER
Essential English: Days of the Week
In this English vocabulary instructional activity, students will select the correct spelling of each day of the week. There are four spelling choices per day.
Curated OER
Banned Book Week: Tips for Teaching Censorship
Consider how book censorship erodes our right to free speech and intellectual freedom.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Three in a Row Calendar Game
Students explore a calendar. In this calendar and math instructional activity, students view a video clip about using a calendar. Students participate in a game in which a game board is used to identify days of the week, dates, and months.
Curated OER
The Weekly News, Part 1
Fifth graders explore things that happen in their schools. In this journalism lesson, 5th graders use the writing process to prioritize their collected information. Students write a weekly article for a classroom news report.
Curated OER
The Weekly News, Part 2
Sixth graders use articles they've previously written to produce a school news broadcast. In this journalism lesson, 6th graders discuss the goals of a news broadcast and use previously written articles to plan a news broadcast. Students...
Curated OER
Short But Sweet
After analyzing and evaluating news summaries found in the New York Times "Week in Review" section, middle schoolers study the steps for summarizing a news article briefly and accurately. They write two news summaries: one on a newspaper...
Newspaper Association of America
Critical Thinking through Core Curriculum: Using Print and Digital Newspapers
What is and what will be the role of newspapers in the future? Keeping this essential question in mind, class members use print, electronic, and/or web editions of newspapers, to investigate topics that include financial literary,...
Curated OER
Alphabetizing
Typing is an essential skill in our day and age! Introduce your second graders to computer typing by teaching them the correct placement of the fingers on a keyboard. Then, they complete an assignment using the word processor.
Curated OER
Vocabulary Building Activity
Four weeks of vocabulary words are provided here! Each week has between six and seven vocabulary words for your young learners to master. First they hear each word, and then they get a short definition for each word. The second activity...
Critical Thinking Cooperative
Doing Our Share
Whether at home or in the classroom, each member of a community has certain responsibilities they must tend to. With the help of the children's story Piggybook by Anthony Browne, kids learn how to assign jobs in a fair and safe manner...
Oakland Writes
Exploring Thematic Motifs in The House on Mango Street
Explore identity and community through an expository essay based on The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. This two-week unit on writing an essay provides a brief description of each day and all of the worksheets and materials you...
Curated OER
Sentence Combining
Learners practice sentence combining at increasingly difficult levels throughout a week. They begin with nouns and verbs and build to contrasts, parallels, etc.
Curated OER
How Weather Affects Our Lives
English learners practice basic weather terms from listening to two books. They keep a daily weather record for two weeks to record the type of weather, as well as the high and low temperatures for each day. Next, they complete a simple...
Helena-West Helena School District
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Instructional Unit Plan
Maya Angelou's first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, demonstrates both the author's exemplary writing and the themes of gender and racial injustice that perpetuate beyond the limits of the 20th century. Use a thorough...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Syntax (English II Reading)
Lesson five in the series focuses on syntax and the elements that make sentences enjoyable. Learners practice building different clauses and phrases and using figures of speech and rhetorical and literary devices.
Curated OER
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Second graders watch a video about Eric Carle before listening to his story entitled, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They notice how the caterpillar eats its way through the days of the week and they examine the life cycle of the...
Curated OER
How Well Will I Eat This Week?
Eighth graders develop a healthy menu for the coming week using Palm technology to develop healthy eating habits. They develop a spreadsheet for the seven days and for each menu using the Palm.
Simon & Schuster
Classroom Activities for Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
An 11-page packet contains three activities designed for readers of Henry David Thoreau's Walden and Civil Disobedience. In one exercise, groups debate whether Thoreau would today be considered liberal or conservative. For another,...
Curated OER
Using Aphorisms to Help Dealing with People
Here's a formal plan for what many effective teachers already do: Provide a week's worth of aphorisms and have learners choose one to write about in their journals each day. They reflect on the meaning of each aphorism and project how it...
Teacher Created Resources
Complex Sentences Made Easy
Support scholars' ability to write complex sentences with a two-page worksheet designed to inform and reinforce. Here, learners obtain a brief overview of what a complex sentence is and how one is made; then apply their new-found...
Curated OER
Bearstone: A Novel Analysis
Seventh graders need to be able to distinguish between major and minor characters and need to have read the novel Bearstone and be familiar with the sequence of events as well as the qualities displayed by each character over the course...
Curated OER
Idea-Noun Definition: Source Searching
A great idea for showing language arts pupils the universality of themes, even in the real world! Have class members choose an idea-noun (peace, justice, war, love, etc.) at the beginning of the year or semester. They complete weekly...
Curated OER
Using Dreams in Writing
C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength provides the model for using dreams in narrative writing. After a discussion of the purpose of dreams in Lewis’s tale, class members craft a story in which their dreams play an essential role.
Curated OER
How to Grow a Sunflower Plant
Students explore botany by conducting a sunflower growth experiment. In this plant life lesson, students identify the anatomy of a sunflower plant and the essential nutrients it requires to grow. Students utilize compost, soil, garden...