Curated OER
Poem in Your Pocket Day: Ideas for Celebrating
First instituted in New York City in 2002 and recognized nationwide in 2009, "Poem in Your Pocket Day" is part of National Poetry Month (April) and celebrates poetry in everyday life. A brief news story includes 9 ideas about how to...
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Punctuation: Periods. Commas,
Color-coded slides model for viewers the various uses of the comma and the period. The rule is presented and followed by several examples. Consider extending the lesson with a practice exercise.
Novelinks
The Devil’s Arithmetic: Concept Analysis
A helpful guide to Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic for your literature unit. Use the sections on point-of-view, dramatic irony, and background knowledge, among others, to frame your lessons in an engaging and educational way.
Curated OER
Dinosaurs
Second graders use the internet to find information about dinosaurs. Using the information, they complete a database with where the dinosaurs lived, diet, and where bones were found. To end the lesson, they are given criteria and review...
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Fuzzy-Feeling Chair
Students recognize positive traits and build self-esteem. In this community building lesson plan, students use a special chair to voice positive traits about a classmate.
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Anasazi Basket Weaving
The Anasazi Indians of Mesa Verde are the focus of this art and social studies lesson plan. Working in pairs or groups of three, students utilize computers and go online to search for websites about the Anasazi. Students will choose two...
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Speedball - Day 6 - Skills Assessment
Speedball - Lesson 6 is about the assessment of skills learned by the class. They will be assessed on their performance of passing touchdowns, field goals, and drop kicks. Then the class will be divided into teams and demonstrate their...
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Dino-Facts!
Students use a database to gather facts about dinosaurs. They practice searching about specific dinosaurs that are of interest to them. To end the lesson plan, they write a story describing the behaviors, eating habits, and environments...
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The Gift of the Magi
Test the true meaning of giving - and irony - with this lesson about "The Gift of the Magi." Using textual analysis, details, and text organization, middle schoolers make predictions about future events in the story and determine the...
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Patterns in Dance and Math
Students analyze how repeated body movements and shapes can represent and extend patterns. In this pattern analysis lesson, students discuss patterns in dance, math, and everyday living. Students demonstrate a dance using a sequence of...
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Web Designs: A Story Comes Alive
Learners work cooperatively to choose a theme, write a story, and produce a web site to display this story in this middle-level lesson on the career of a web designer. This excellent lesson ends with an organized, web site launch party.
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Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers
Students compose a letter to a family member. In this writing lesson plan, students listen to the book, Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers and identify the parts of a letter.
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All Aboard
Explore the U.S.S. Nevada. Researchers use primary sources, secondary sources, children's books and websites to study the naval ship. Their study commences with a class alphabet book on the ship. Intended to be part of a lesson on...
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1900 America: Primary Sources and Epic Poetry
Using Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and Hart Crane's The Bridge as models, class groups first craft their own epic poems for 1900 and, using primary sources, create a multi-media presentation that captures the sights and sounds of life...
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What's In a Noun: Grammar and Usage
Nine lessons in a grammar and usage unit provide endless opportunities for drill and practice. Topics include the four types of sentences, subject and predicates, nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs and prepositions, conjunctions...
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Role Playing Free Speech
Young scholars conduct research into looking at a free-speech issue. They role play the events surrounding a court case. The lesson includes guiding questions to help create context and determine areas of further study. The presentation...
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Ask a NASA Engineer
Students develop questions to ask a NASA engineer to email them. After emailing the quesitons to the volunteer, the answers are sent to the class via the same method. To end the lesson, they formulate more questions and repeat the process.
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Good Deeds Reap Rewards
Students recognize the good deeds of their classmates. In this self-esteem lesson, students participate in a reward program for doing a good deed. Students get prizes for outstanding behavior.
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Robert Frost
Start your poetry unit with this basic overview of Robert Frost's life and works. A PowerPoint presentation starts off the instructional activity, which ends in a short recall quiz about Robert Frost. The presentation would be sufficient...
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Finding My Voice
Have your class learn the essentials of public speaking. They compose a speech for their fifth grade celebration using iPods and presentation software. This would be a great end of the year activity for any grade level.
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ONE VOTE
In order to understand the political process and the importance of voting, pupils will construct a class time line. They will group up and research a specific era, creating a time line of political events where one vote made a...
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Using Graphology to Teach Traditional Writing
Introduce your class to the narrative, descriptive and expository forms of writing. In groups, they discuss the personality of the author while graphing the characteristics after reading different examples from the same writer. To end...
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Bioethics
Students are introduced to the issues surrounding bioethics and begin to discover how some of these values can influence decision making. The exciting part of this lesson is the constructivist method used to engage students of all...
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Oral Presentation
Practice your speaking skills! Using a chosen visual aid, pupils present a previously written essay to the class. During the oral presentation, the listeners identify and write down the author's purpose and a question for the author. At...