Curated OER
Ban That Book!
Take advantage of Banned Book Week to pique students' interest and get them reading! Create a classroom display of previously banned books and allow each member of your class to choose one to read. After they have read their book, get...
Academy of American Poets
We Sing America
Pair the famous poems "I Hear America Singing," by Walt Whitman, and "I, Too, Sing America," by Langston Hughes, with a more recent poem by Elizabeth Alexander called "Praise Song for the Day" to demonstrate a theme and introduce your...
Curated OER
Create Your Own Business!
Create a business and assess the costs of acquiring a business licenses and advertising. The class determines the name, location, business product to be sold and the best method to sell that product. A great way to understand the US...
Curated OER
Invetories Slave owner or not?
Primary source analysis is a great way to bring history to life. Learners examine a series of personal inventories taken from Southern white males who died during the Civil War era. They analyze the documents to determine the social and...
Curated OER
Reliving History through Slave Narratives
Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...
Curated OER
Hamlet Research Paper: Find, Evaluate, and Select Appropriate Research Sources
Help young researchers find credible sources online. Modeling with a Google search for information about Shakespeare’s Macbeth, use a computer projector or Smart Board to show class members how weak the top three search results are....
Curated OER
Jimmy Carter: Civic Action, Lesson 2
Build on high schoolers' awareness of what's wrong with society. Here they examine Jimmy Carter's extensive involvement in volunteer action in the local, national, and global arenas. Define and explore concepts -- philanthropy, citizen,...
Curated OER
World War II Home Front
Eleventh graders examine the political demands put on one of four groups living in America during WWII. Each class member is asked to research and write a paper describing the homefront experience for women, Hispanics, African-Americans,...
Curated OER
Setting the Tone with Figurative Language
Explore figurative language with your secondary class. Extending a language arts unit, the lesson plan prompts middle schoolers to examine how an author's word choice establishes a story's tone, possibly using metaphors, similes,...
Curated OER
The World of Work
Students identify between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors at work. In this work behaviors lesson, students use a dictionary to define the related terms and visit various links to complete activities that define work place...
Curated OER
The Effects of Slavery
The emotional and spiritual oppression of slavery in the African-American experience is the focus of this lesson. Middle schoolers analyze various texts by Frederick Douglass and Maya Angelou related to freedom and oppression. They use...
DePaul University
Bold Plans, Big Dreams, City Progress
Determining which statements represent fact or the author's opinion in an integral part of reading informational text. Encourage seventh graders to read a passage about Barack Obama and the city of Chicago, as well as a passage focused...
Bully Free Systems
Bully Free Lesson Plans—Sixth Grade
Two lessons stress the importance of keeping your classroom bully-free. Discussion, collaborative work, role-play, and writing allows participants to examine whether their classroom is welcoming to new members and decide what they should...
Curated OER
Once Upon a Time
Young artists view pieces of artwork by Robert Harris, then have class discussions, write collaborative stories, make a painting or drawing, and analyze and create their own advertisements. This series of lessons should lead to some...
Curated OER
Make a Farm
After a class discussion about where their food comes from learners construct a farm from a print-out (embedded in the plan). They work in groups, and trace a food source from the beginning. For example, they discover how a farmer grows...
Curated OER
Tens and Ones Fun
Youngsters use their large motor skills to build numbers to 20 in this outdoor, kinesthetic, collaborative activity. Amass cardboard boxes for groups to stack, sort, and bundle into 10s and 1s to show numbers and place value. They'll...
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 gaps to...
Curated OER
Number Addition Race
Practice basic addition facts and measuring skills. For this addition and measurement lesson, students are provided with drywall tape and work in groups of four at a long table. Partners take turns generating addends and marking the...
Curated OER
How Diverse is That?
Compare various types of biological diversity in a coral reef and calculate a numeric indicator that describes the diversity found in coral communities. Your class can work in groups to look at the abundance and distribution data of...
Curated OER
Number Operations
Inject fun into your math review! Pupils review basic math operations with decimals as well as addition and subtraction with simple fractions. In this number operations lesson, students work in groups to create a game for the math skill...
Curated OER
Transportation Fuels Debate
Young scholars study the different transportation fuels. In this energy sources lesson students debate the merits of their fuel over others while working together in groups.
Curated OER
Cartoons for the Classroom: Presidential Candidates
Build critical analysis skills with this cartoon for the classroom. Upper graders answer three critical thinking questions to help them analyze a political cartoon, which depicts how Presidential Candidates are judged and chosen. Put...
Indiana University
Asian Literature: “The View in Spring” by Du Fu
Over the course of the lesson plan, your pupils read and analyze a translated eight-line poem from the Tang Dynasty written by Du Fu, a poet caught behind enemy lines during the An Lu-Shan rebellion (755-763). Literary/historical context...
August House
Stone Soup
Sharing and cooperation are difficult skills for kindergartners to grasp. Using the story Stone Soup and a series of activities, kids learn about the benefits of working together, categorizing and comparing items, and eating healthy foods.