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From Bats to Babies: Ultrasound
High schoolers research and analyze sound waves and how an ultrasound works to image a baby in utero. They explore various websites, complete worksheets, and write a paragraph describing a demonstration they view in the classroom.
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Writing Topic Sentences
In this writing worksheet, students read a topic sentence or supporting details of ten paragraph. Students fill in the missing information to create a complete outline.
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Everything was up to date in 1628
Learners view a video of Colonial House, a reality series where people lived according to the standards of European immigrants to the U.S. in 1628. In this colonial history lesson, students research changes in geographic areas over time...
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How can deep-water corals be used to determine long-term patterns of climate change?
Students explore the concept of paleoclimatological proxies. In this paleoclimatological proxies lesson, students explain isotope ratios in deep water coral samples. Students write a paragraph about global climate change as...
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Why Would I Owe My Soul to the Company Store?
Sixth graders listen to "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford and discuss what it means to owe one's soul to a store. In this mathematics instructional activity, 6th graders determine what a miner's income was minus his expenses...
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Introduction to Presidential Power
Twelfth graders describe the power of the President. In this Constitution activity students reflect on the power given to the president of the United States by the wording in the Constitution. Students give their opinion.
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Makes Cents to Me: Penny Drive
St that people have wants and must find ways to get them. In this philanthropy lesson plan, students understand the ways people get things and arrange a penny drive to help others. Students arrange an artistic project to reflect on their...
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I Am, Am Not! Project
Get your class writing with this project idea. Kids choose two pictures of objects that are like them and two pictures of objects that are not like them to entice their readers. Then, they write an informative paragraph describing each...
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Be a Celebrity and Share Your Life with Us
Sixth graders discuss their likes, dislikes, hobbies, goals, and special events in their lives. They write a five paragraph autobiography focusing on style, transitions, and details. This is well-suited for either explanatory or...
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Fairy Tales Unit Ideas
Learners listen to children's fairy tales and watch them on a video. Afterward, they list the heroes from each story. Students write a short paragraph about a typical day for the hero. Learners dress up like their character and give a...
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Career Planning and Research
What do you want to do when you finish school? Most high schoolers have an idea of what they'd want to do, but little idea of how to achieve this goal. After researching a career of their choosing, learners identify qualifications,...
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Varying Sentence Structure
Show your writers how to use simple, compound, and complex sentences to add variety to writing. In addition, examples show how to employ semicolons and coordinating conjunctions to combine sentences. Colorful illustrations and graphics...
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Making Predictions:
Pupils of all ages practice making predictions about what will happen next in a fairy tale as the teacher reads it aloud. They demonstrate how to support their predictions with information and facts from the story.
San José State University
MLA Formatting Guidelines: Ellipsis for Omissions
If you would like a concise overview of MLA formatting, this two-page handout provides it. It addresses page layout, parenthetical citations, and works cited (including when and how to use ellipses to indicate an omission), but it does...
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Web It!
Looking for a way to bring prewriting into your informative writing unit? Use this lesson to reinforce writing skills in your eighth grade language arts class. Young writers use a web graphic organizer as a prewriting tool for expository...
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Think of an Ending
Good endings are hard to find. And write. This, the final lesson in a six-part series devoted to study of the ingredients of a good story, focuses on crafting endings. Class members draft ideas about what should happen to each of their...
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Exploring Nature: Powerful Forces
Learners observe samples of artwork which use line, shape, and form to show movement and depict natural forces of nature. They create their own piece of artwork that shows a natural force and movement and then write a descriptive...
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Bats
Students investigate bats. In this animal science lesson, students use several websites and suggested bat books to write an informative paragraph. Students should be able to write with 90% accuracy.
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Fun With Sun Protection
Pupils create sun protection devices by modeling sunglasses invented by native people of the Arctic and study about protecting the body from sun exposure. They write a small paragraph explaining and justifying why they believe a certain...
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Finding the Main Idea: Little Women
Whether or not your class is reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, you can use this exercise as the basis of a mini-lesson on how to determine the main idea of a passage or as a pre-test to assess mastery of the skill. A graphic...
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Simple Machines
Here is a good four-page worksheet designed to get your young inventors thinking about a simple machine they could design and build. They must answer some basic questions about their machine, draw a sketch of their idea, and write a...
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Develop a Paragraph
In this paragraph writing worksheet, students review the definition of a paragraph and then read the opening sentences for a paragraph on cooking. Students cut out the sentence strips and arrange the sentences in the order of topic...
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My Favorite Thing to Do
Young scholars realize that a paragraph is a short piece of writing that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Every story, essay, article, or book is like a patchwork quilt made of little paragraphs stitched together
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Five Paragraph Essay
Eighth graders are introduced to the mechanics of writing a standard-form essay. They draft, edit and polish a five-paragraph essay about spending the day as an animal of their choice.