How do you describe a jellyfish? Individuals write adjectives for Nomura's jellyfish, take notes, and check understanding with a formative assessment. Notes include the definition for adjectives, guiding questions to help writers...

Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...

It is difficult to articulate how growing up feels as accurately and beautifully as Sandra Cisneros does in her short story "Eleven." After seventh graders read the story and note the author's use of figurative language, they respond to...

What are the effects of competition in an academic environment? The competition between the main characters in A Separate Peace motivates a series of activities that asks readers to take a stance on competition, and then to develop a...

How do you write a number in scientific notation? The handout and video provide an explanation on how to convert from standard form into scientific notation and vice versa. The resource also contains a short discussion about choosing...

As this short story unit comes to a close, provide a day for a full examination of theme and allow some time in class for individuals to work on their various assessments. This final lesson before presenting iMovies and portfolios is the...

Young historians use their planning graphic organizer to prepare a personal narrative draft on expert trades. Since the instructional activity is considered the mid-unit assessment, learners respond to a writing prompt related to the...

Feeling conflicted? Work out those issues with a language arts lesson on internal and external conflict. Using "The Interlopers" by Saki, class members identify the conflicts between the characters before writing their own short...

Recovery from substance addiction is an ongoing process. The final lesson in a series about painkiller abuse and addiction prompts learners to research various recovery options before writing a short story about a character who is going...

Combine measurement, following directions, physics, and art with one fun activity. Learners read a set of instruction to create three different kinds of paper airplanes. They measure, fold, and fly the planes, and record data and answer...

Once your class has mastered the indicative, it's time to present the subjunctive mood. This resource focuses solely on how to conjugate in the present subjunctive, but does link to more information on how to to use it. Class members can...

Four lessons make up a unit focused on writing persuasive essays. Each unit builds on the last, ultimately taking pupils through the writing process. Scholars make a claim, create an argument, debate both sides, then state their opinion....

Butcher, trucker, inspector ... so many options, so little time! Scholars pick a career in agriculture and describe it, writing about the education requirements. They also receive direct instruction about the agriculture industry...

Learners study the decisions and solutions involved in winning the right to vote. After reading background information on the fight for women's suffrage, including one woman's story, and its eventual success in the United States and...

A game designed to support advanced phonics instruction challenges scholars to read and break a word into syllables. If the player is correct, they move their game piece forward on the board. Whoever gets to the end first wins!

Scholars read excerpts from the story, Heidi, in a three-part assessment that focuses on comparing and contrasting characters. Each part contains three tasks that challenge learners to discuss, answer comprehension...

Use ratios to solve problems that are not proportions. The instructional activity has pupils solve multi-step ratio problems that involve fractional increases and decreases. The problems involve mark-ups, discounts, commissions, and...

Discover alliteration found in picture books by Pamela Duncan Edwards. Then, dive into a read aloud of Alligators All Around by Maurice Sendak. This practice sets the stage for budding poets to create their own acrostic poem,...

As an assessment of their skill in crafting a compare and contrast essay, class members read and compare the portrayals of nature in excerpts from naturalist John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra and from poet Emily Dickinson's...

The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...

Help young mathematicians crack the code of word problems with this three-lesson series on problem solving. Walking students step-by-step through the process of identifying key information, creating algebraic equations, and finally...

Support your learners during the speech-writing process with a five-page graphic organizer. Pupils have plenty of space to write in their evidence and arguments on this resource. The organizer provides some prompts for each section to...

Plants prefer classical music to rock and roll. That's one of the claims in an informational passage that makes up part of a set of standardized assessment questions. The set is part of a larger collection of English language arts tests...

Encourage young writers to edit text based on conventions. After reviewing the conventions, fourth graders watch a teacher demonstrate how to revise a paragraph for correct spelling, capitalization, punctuation, or dialogue. Then, pairs...