Curated OER
All About Almanacs
Use almanacs to entice your learners to explore non-fiction texts in celebration of Read-An-Almanac Month!
Candace Fleming
Ben Franklin’s Almanac: Being a True Account of the Good Gentleman’s Life
Candace Fleming's award winning Ben Franklin's Almanac is the anchor text for a classroom guide that provides teachers with a cache of pre, during, and post-reading activities.
Library Sparks
Reference Tools Vocabulary Challenge
Students love the opportunity of going to the library to jump into that one comfy chair in the whole room with a book, or be a lucky one to get to the computers before anyone else. But knowing how to locate books and other reference...
Curated OER
Use Or Abuse?
Students explain the meaning of "use value" of nature's resources by researching and writing studenT books personifying an aspect of nature. They produce public service announcements regarding use value for their local community.
Curated OER
Make a Community Almanac
Pupils gather geographic information about their community. They work together to create a community almanac.
Curated OER
Animals in the Almanac
Students practice using a World Almanac by completing the provided worksheet on animals.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Using an Almanac
Young scholars work cooperatively in order to identify specific situations in which an almanac is the best choice for locating information. They answer specific questions, record the page on which the answer was found, and the key words...
National First Ladies' Library
Let's Make a World Series Almanac
Middle schoolers discuss the meaning of the word, almanac and then decide which statistics about the World Series they think should be included in the almanac, browsing some websites to get some idea of what statistics are available....
Curated OER
Library Skills Review
Middle schoolers review library skills by rotating through teacher-created learning stations covering various topics. They discuss plagiarism, work on Almanac practice as a team, complete practice using indexes, and an abstracts handout...
Curated OER
Reference Resources: Being a Good Detective
Learners explore a variety of reference resources while seeking information. atlases, almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, and online search engines as well as library card catalogs are utilized in this instructional activity.
Curated OER
Where in the World is Mr. Fultz?
Students use maps and other geographic resources to learn about their world while problem solving. They read clues each day and use classroom resources to narrow down where the prize is located.
Curated OER
Using Information Resources: Lesson 1
Eighth graders examine, brainstorm, cluster, and skim how to use a variety of information resources to assist them in projects or reports. In addition, places to find those information resources as well as the parts of a book is covered...
Chandler Unified School District
Frankly Speaking: Exploring Benjamin Franklin's Aphorisms
Benjamin Franklin famously had an aphorism for every situation—most of which we still use in modern vernacular. Introduce class members to Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack with a presentation that details the characteristics of aphorisms.
Concord Consortium
Leap Years and Calendars
How many birthdays do leap year babies have in a lifetime? Learners explore the question among others in a lesson focused on different calendar systems. Given explanations of the Julian, Gregorian, and Martian calendars, individuals use...
Prairie Public Broadcasting
Egyptian Pyramids Virtual Field Trip!
A virtual field trip takes enthusiastic travelers to the pyramids of Giza. Using Google, scholars explore the grounds of the ancient pyramids found in Egypt then complete three worksheets: a photo analysis page, a reflection sheet, and a...
Concord Consortium
Here Comes the Sun
Many phenomena in life are periodic in nature. A task-based lesson asks scholars to explore one of these phenomena. They collect data showing the sunrise time of a specific location over the period of a year. Using the data, they create...
Curated OER
Presidents
Fifth graders explore using almanacs for research purposes. They use the almanac to look up a variety of information including the presidents of the United States.
Curated OER
Reference Materials
Students discuss reasons to use reference materials, identify correct reference material to use for specific information, find answers to specific questions by locating information in encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, almanac, glossary,...
Scholastic
Perfect Postcards: Illinois
Connect the geography and history of Illinois using an art-centered lesson on the railroads. The railroad connected once-distant places, particularly in the Midwest. Using research, class members create postcards of fictional cross-state...
Curated OER
WORDS FRANKLY SPOKEN
Students visit appropriate websites to discover quotes from Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. Working in pairs, they choose three quotes on which to elaborate and then write two original quotes.
Curated OER
New York City Delights: The Taxi Cab
You set the rate! Step into the shoes of a taxi driver in New York City, and also pretend to be a person who uses taxis to get around town. The class will conduct collaborative research to learn about the history of taxis. Then, they...
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum
Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World
Of the many roles he played, Benjamin Franklin most wanted to be remembered as B. Franklin, Printer. Learners of all ages find out more about this amazing man through the activities included in the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Guide.
Curated OER
Presidents
Fifth graders use almanacs to take notes on their individual presidents on a note card. They fill in a variety of biographical information on their president. They convert their information into whole paragraphs.
Curated OER
What's Your Reference
For this reference material worksheet, students choose the correct reference for each question given. Students discover the differences in the materials found in the dictionary, the almanac, the atlas, the newspaper, and the thesaurus.