Curated OER
Teaching With the Power of Objects
Students define value of an object. In this value lesson plan, students identify reasons for collecting objects, compile a personal inventory of items they find valuable, and then define why those items are valuable to them. In step two...
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Building Bridges: Living in a Diverse Society
Learners participate in various activities that help them build esteem, and explore racism. In this multicultural lesson plan, Students increase their awareness of, and appreciation for, cultural differences and similarities. This...
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History Close to Home: Creating Your Own Special Museum
Students create their own museum exhibit. In this museum creation lesson plan, students research their local history so they can decide on a theme for their exhibit and what objects they will use in order to design a museum exhibit. A...
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India: Where Remarkable Differences Are Ordinary
Students research India and Indian culture. In this Indian research lesson plan, students research and report on the lives of Indian children. The report will be in the form of a mock interview between a journalist and an Indian child....
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Learning from Letters and Other Mail
Learners explore the history of our mail system. In this postal lesson plan, students evaluate mail as a means of communication, create a mail system in their classroom where they can send and receive mail. Once the learners receive...
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Playing Historical Detective: Great Grandmother's Dress and Other Clues to the Life and Times of Annie Steel
Students draw conclusions about an mystery person based on documents and artifacts provided. In this drawing conclusions lesson, students become detectives by reading and analyzing evidence provided. This lesson includes information on...
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You Too Can Haiku: How to Write a Haiku
Students explore language arts by writing their own poems. For this haiku lesson, students investigate the Japanese culture and their beautiful music, poetry and art. Students count the syllables in every line of a haiku poem and write...
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Social Studies: War and the Media
Students examine the impact of the media on various wars, especially the Iraq and Vietnam wars. By examining cartoons and popular music as primary sources, they suggest motivations for the conflicts and propose reasons for public...
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Lewis and Clark: The Language of Discovery
Students replicate some of the trailblazing methods of Lewis and Clark on a fifteen-minute "writing journey" through the school or neighborhood.
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Animal Encounters
Students use their visualizing and interpreting skills to produce original writings and artwork.
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How Things Fly
Students observe photographs of selected twentieth-century aircraft at the National Air and Space Museum and note differences in the design of aircraft wings, fuselages, and engines.
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Different Ethnic Groups in Ecuador, Panama and Argentina: Their Assimilation and their Contributions
Students research various Latin American countries and reflect on the different ethnic communities represented in that country and their contributions to the region. They make posters, perform skits and write letters about their research.
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How Things Fly
Students, by drawing on their own experiences, discuss and examine the basic physics of flight. They participate in a variety of activities regarding flight.
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Stories of the Wrights' Flight
Students examine and compare primary and secondary source accounts of the Wright brothers' first flights on December 17, 1903.
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Money Talks
Students move from fact finding to interpretation as they examine paper money from the time of the American Revolution. In the final exercise, they use the issue dates of the bills to construct a chronology of political changes during...
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Pictures Telling Stories
Students see the importance of primary sources in the study of history, but also the limitations of relying only on primary sources of taking the money, as it were, at face value.
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"Encounter with a Skull"
Students read a story twice. The first time they read it is without contextual information. They read it with the contextual information.
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The Rocky Shore
Students compare a realistic landscape painting with a photograph of the same place.
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Writing Ghost Stories Using Encounter With a Skull As a Model
Students explore the elements of a ghost story and cautionary tales. The story, "Encounter With a Skull" is read and used as a model for their own story creations. The values and belief systems of various cultures are examined.
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Dragons Of China And Japan
Students create drawings of dragons that could be found in the art of Japan or China. The lesson involves two-days of instruction and leads to student examples of dragons four-times larger than the originals.
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"He Says, She Says"
Stuents compare and contrast male and female views of love and beauty in classic Chinese and Japanese society through the reading and evaluation of prose and poetry. Chinese and Japanese art is also studied.
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Spy on a Spider
Students view slides or live specimens to name and describe the distinguishing features of groups of arthropods, especially spiders and insects. They complete worksheets, observe webs and then search for and record where spiders can be...
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Creatures from Planet X: Spiders
Students are given a description of some fascinating animals from "Planet X". They follow the descriptions given to illustrate one of these animals paying careful attention to introduced vocabulary such as 'appendages', 'receptors', and...
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Facts, Feats and Folklore: Spiders
Students review and discuss a variety of sayings, folklore and superstitions about spiders. They discuss this information and choose either an interesting fact or appealing foklore tradition to illustrate.