American Museum of Natural History
Mesozoic Museum
Mini museum curators create an exhibit that showcases the Mesozoic era. Pupils use their knowledge of dinosaurs to make informative posters, drawings, and dioramas. Following three steps to complete the hands-on activity, scholars read...
Curated OER
Consumerism: No Purchase Necessary
Learners read a script that helps them understand the ins and outs of consumerism. They watch a video (not included), and engage in two additional activities. The lesson plan engages critical thinking skills and brings awareness to the...
Curated OER
Hemingway's Short Stories Quiz
This online quiz is really only useful if your class has read several short stories by Hemingway, as it doesn't focus just on one. There are 12 multiple choice questions here, and they almost all relate to a different story.
Sacramento State Masters of Educational Technology
Tuck Everlasting: Debate Activity
Use Tuck Everlasting as a springboard for a debate on big ideas about immortality and the death penalty. Take a week for research and debate by following the steps outlined in this plan. Tapping into technology for help, small groups...
Curated OER
Arctic Animals: How Do They Measure Up?
Young scientists grab their measuring tapes, rulers, and yard sticks as they see how big Arctic animals really are. To conceptualize the trait of height or length, each small group will measure out the entire length of an arctic animal....
Macmillan Education
A Wrinkle in Time Discussion and Activity Guide
As you work through Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, try out some or all of the 20 questions and activities included here. Useful for discussion questions, group assignments, or individual projects, this resource covers plot as...
Institute for Humane Education
In Your Face: Reclaiming Billboards
Ads here, ads there, ads everywhere—but what do they communicate? Pupils discuss this topic and develop a list of personal values. They then work as creative directors at an advertising firm to create billboards that reflect community...
Curated OER
Daytona 500
Student practice reading with fluency. They read In The Big Top and practice reading to improve their speed and fluency. Students discuss what it sounded like when they read the story at various speeds. Students time their reading and...
Curated OER
Express Yourself
Young scholars practice reading orally with expression. Students are divided into pairs and receive the book "The Big Wide Mouthed Frog." The partners take turns reading the book with a lot of expression. The young scholars rate each...
Curated OER
Poof!!! Let's Become Fluent Readers
Students listen as the teacher explains fluency and why it's important. They listen as the teacher demonstrates reading fluently and nonfluently. Students listen as the teacher introduces "Doc in the Fog." They practice reading the...
Curated OER
Authoring Stories for Guided Reading
Students in a teacher education program write their own children's book. Using books already written, they review age appropriate for their grade level placement. They write their own story and illustrate it using various software...
Curated OER
Speedy Reader
Students practice the fluency of their reading by incorporating a variety of techniques and strategies. They read with stop watches and analyze "In the Big Top" and "Charlie," by Richard Vaughan. Students race and record their personal...
Curated OER
Let's Sail Far, Far Away
Second graders read a book as stated in the instructional activity and then reread the first two pages aloud modeling how not to read, without fluency and with no expression. Then they reread the same two pages again fluently and with...
Curated OER
Speedy Readers
Student increase their reading fluency through the use of various strategies. After reviewing chunking, decoding, and rereading, learners complete an initial read of a novel text. Working with a partner, they read complete a timed...
Curated OER
Icky Fingers
Students are introduced to digraphs so they can match letters to their phonemes. They recognize the short vowel i=/i/ in both spoken and written words by practicing reading and spelling words containing /i/. Elkonin Letter Boxes are...
Curated OER
Bless You
Students practice recognizing the phoneme /a/ in spoken and written words as well as by symbol. They interact with the book, "The Cat Nap," from Educational Insights and the Dr. Seuss book, "ABC's Book." Each student also plays a memory...
Curated OER
Get Ready to Race!
Student increase their reading fluency through the use of various strategies. After reviewing decoding and rereading, students complete an initial read of a novel text. Working with a partner, they read complete a timed assessment of...
Curated OER
Start Your Engines
Student increase their reading fluency and expressiveness through the use of various strategies. After reviewing crosschecking, decoding, and rereading, students complete an initial read of a novel text. Working with a partner, they read...
Curated OER
If You Were Katy: Let's Play a Game
Students simulate sound effects from Katy and the Big Snow. They read and discuss Katy and the Big Snow, create sound effects for the objects in the book and practice sounding out beginning sounds for words. After sounding out the words,...
Curated OER
Where's My Dot?
Students explore the five basic elements of Monart, dot, curved line, straightline, and angle line to create a book about their home address. The concept of "big" is explored in this lesson.
Curated OER
Clouds, Rain, and Fog: A Closer Look
Second graders practice comprehension strategies to successfully process informational text for content knowledge, and describe what clouds, rain, and fog are and how they are made.
Curated OER
The Doctor Said Open Up and Say /o/
Students complete a variety of activities related to the short /o/ sound. As a class they recite a tongue twister, and trace and write the letter O. Students then listen to the book "In the Big Top," and write down the words from the...
Curated OER
Cool Words to Share
Fifth graders use teacher-selected vocabulary to present a written story to a first grade student. The book include a glossary of terms and illustrations of the terms. This is a great activity for big/little buddies to do together!
Curated OER
Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story
Sixth graders engage in the reading of a non-fiction text in order to acquire character traits as displayed in the text.The story builds reading fluency through the teacher modeling correct style and speed.