EngageNY
Organizing Evidence from Multiple Informational Texts to Prepare for Writing: What Makes an Earthquake a Natural Disaster?
Fifth graders prepare for their end of the unit essay assessment by continuing to look at what makes an earthquake a natural disaster. They complete a graphic organizer and write a topic sentence. To finish, they view a model essay and...
Curated OER
Poems: calligrams
Have fun with shape poems! First and second graders write calligrams that add to the meaning of their poems. Great for your poetry unit or if you want to combine poetry and art lessons.
California Department of Education
Studying for Careers
How can good study habits set someone up for a successful career? Learners explore the relationship between study skills and job skills in the fourth installment of a five-part college and career readiness lesson plan series. The group...
Curated OER
Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems
Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...
Curated OER
Note-Taking: K.I.S.S. "Keep It Short and Simple"
Note-taking is an essential study skill, and it needs to be taught! In the context of a research project on energy sources, learners find multiple sources, evaluating, paraphrasing, and citing them correctly. Two lists with note-taking...
Book Units Teacher
Skill Lessons – Prefixes and Suffixes
Sometimes the best way to understand a concept is to break it down. Young vocabulary pupils work with word parts in a hands-on activity that prompts them to connect flash cards with affixes to their root and base words....
Fluence Learning
Writing About Literature: What Is Happiness?
Jack London's heart for adventure has come to define the spirit of America and its frontier. Selected passages from the foreword The Cruise of the Snark take eighth graders through London's construction and voyage of his ship before...
Curated OER
Simple Machines
Have your class conduct research to learn all they can about simple machines. They use the web, take notes from a video, write a script, then make a film describing various simple machines found in real life. These videos are then...
California Department of Education
Telling My Story
Entrance essays are the ultimate sales pitch! Show your seniors how to market themselves in the first of six college and career readiness lesson plans. Pupils discover the do's and don'ts of writing personal statements through research,...
Curated OER
Picturing America: Images and Words of Hope from Romare Bearden and Langston Hughes
A carefully crafted three-day lesson integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The lesson activates...
Curated OER
Things Fall Apart: Research, Writing & Presentation Project
A great resource for your unit on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Small groups conduct research about related topics (list included), write papers, present PowerPoint slide shows, and take a student-created test. Fill in a few...
Scholastic
Writing Letters to the Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets
To celebrate National Poetry Month, young writers focus on the role letter writing has played in the development of poets. They begin by journaling three to five associations to a writing prompt that requires them to identify their...
EngageNY
Mid-Module Assessment Task: Grade 8 Module 7
Assess pupil understanding of rational and irrational numbers with a mid-module assessment that is the 15th lesson in the 25-part series. The questions represent the objectives in the first half of the series. Topics include decimal...
Curated OER
Let Me Tell You About My State
State reports can be a lot of fun, especially when the learners get to choose the state they study. This research and writing-focused social studies lesson engages learners in collecting information, essay structure, research, and...
Curated OER
Make a Memory with Movie Maker
There is nothing more exciting than allowing learners to express themselves through a creative medium. In groups, they write narrative stories, focusing on building a strong storyline and dialogue. Next, they transform their stories into...
Curated OER
Story Pyramids
Young writers generate descriptive words. They use pictures of various landscapes (from books, magazines, or the Internet) and complete a story pyramid. The pyramid (included here) asks to describe the main character, the setting, and...
Curated OER
5th Grade, Egg Droppers
The classic "Egg Drop Activity" is described in this fine science lesson plan. Young scientists work together to design a container that will protect the eggs inside of it when dropped from a high place. Lots of good scientific...
Curated OER
The ABC's of the Three Little Pigs
Writers use varied sentence patterns. They listen to the story of Cinderella rewritten so that each sentence starts with the next letter of the alphabet. They create their own version of The Three Little Pigs using the same concept.
Curated OER
Search Warranted?
Young readers work on evaluating claims in a piece of informational text with the article "In New York, It's Open Bag or Find Exits" from the New York Times. They analyze current search procedures implemented to fight terrorism...
Dream of a Nation
Writing an Analytic Essay
After researching an issue introduced in Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, writers develop an original thesis statement and craft an analytic essay using evidence collected in their research.
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Don't Mess with Mercury (Lesson C)
The health effects of mercury exposure if the focus of the first of three activities about the properties of metals. Pairs research mercury to write, prepare, and share posters, articles, or PSAs with the class.
Curated OER
Language Arts Lesson Plan
Learners use a variety of synonyms to write headlines and articles that resemble a model article.
Curated OER
How a Writer Conveys Descriptions With a Wallop Lesson 3 for Running (From River Town)
Learners examine strategies an author uses to provide qualitative and quantitative aspects of life in China. They apply the strategies to their own writing.
Ohio Department of Education
Describing and Creating Plane Figures - Grade One
Young mathematicians draw, create, and describe different shapes using triangles. They discuss attributes of the original and created shapes. Pupils classify the created shapes and draw and write in mathematics journals to communicate...