Curated OER
Blogging To Create A Community of Writers # 5 of 7
Here is instructional activity 5 from a 7 instructional activity unit on using blogging to create a community of writers. The aim of this instructional activity is to get students writing about what Archaeologists do and how they use...
Curated OER
On the Cutting Edge
Introduce the background of design and designers and their role in communicating their thoughts to others. In groups, you can assign participation in a writing cluster on various designers and write paragraphs to submit to magazines. To...
Curated OER
Metaphors
Metaphors open doors to descriptive language for your poets. They read the poem "What is the Sun" and record all the metaphors they find. Then, scholars change one of them to a simile. After answering two more comprehension questions,...
Curated OER
A Season for Chapters
Art, music, poetry, and the beauty of the seasons is what you'll find in this very nice unit idea. You can use any of the suggested books and activities to engage your second graders in an exploration of the changes that take place...
Curated OER
Dead Word Wall Kills Overused Words
Have your class attend a funeral for the words they overuse in their writing. They develop a list of alternate words for those overused words, and make an effort to employ alternatives whenever possible. This is a great way to improve...
Curated OER
Day to Day Life in a Small African Village
Students analyze what it is like to live in an African village. They locate Tanzania on a map and compare life there to life here in the United States. They write about the health issues in East Africa.
Curated OER
Note Taking By Crayon
Skim a brief biography of Amelia Earhart with your class, and then assign groups of researchers one of four topics listed: Amelia's family life, important airplane flights during Amelia's life, turning points in Amelia's life, and...
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast Photograph Art
Take a trip down Pearblossom Highway with this lesson about comparing and contrasting. Using David Hockney's Pearblossom Hwy and another image of the same highway (photograph or other image), students compare and contrast the two...
Curated OER
What's Proper?
Learners practice using capital letters for proper nouns and adjectives. They play a matching game with word cards and correct paragraphs with incorrect capitalization, and edit their work with a partner.
Curated OER
Spinelli's Maniac Magee (excerpt): Reading and Critical Thinking Practice
A brief, dialogue-rich passage from Jerry Spinelli's novel Maniac Magee is accompanied by a well-written literacy assessment tool. Thematic content lends itself to age-appropriate discussions about race relations and social justice....
Curated OER
The Outsiders Project Guide
Hand out these project ideas when working with The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Pupils can choose from six different options or propose their own. The idea is that they will complete more than one project to meet the point requirement. The...
Curated OER
Sentences for Sight Word Dictation
Improve your learners' reading and writing skills with a set of sentences designed to help pupils work with sight words. The teacher dictates while the pupils write; this is followed by discussion.
EngageNY
Evaluating Evidence: Adversities Faced in the Middle Ages
How is that relevant? Scholars gain an understanding of the words relevant and compelling. They then go back to the End of Unit 1 Assessment Prompt: Adversity in the Middle Ages and look at the second bullet that pertains to relevant and...
Curated OER
"Memories of Mom" Memento
Young scholars brainstorm a list of writing topics for a "Memories of Mom" book, choose one of the topics as the subject of a daily essay and combine a week of daily essays into a book to give their mothers for Mother's Day.
Curated OER
Conejito
Third graders read the story "Conejito" and write a descriptive story about the rainforest in Panama. They answer story comprehension questions, complete worksheet questions about a map of Panama, and rewrite a paragraph changing the...
Curated OER
Vivid Verbs
Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...
Curated OER
"Blackbeard's Ghost" Differentiated Lesson Plan
Develop a better understanding of "Blackbeard's Ghost" with this differentiated instructional activity. Working in groups on a creative project, middle schoolers can reinforce their reading comprehension and literary analysis skills. Use...
Curated OER
Designing the Future of Technology
Conduct research focused on improving a current technology by having students work in groups to investigate improvements that could be made to a particular piece of technology. They list the current problems and attempt to develop...
Curated OER
The Outsiders
Are you working on an Outsiders unit? Use this list of activities to deepen your middle schoolers' understanding of the novel. After reading S.E. Hinton's novel, young readers work on three required activities, including participating in...
Curated OER
Global News: The Changing Face of Reading
A current and engaging informational text with some superb scaffolding activities, this six paragraph article discusses the release of the iPad from Apple, eBooks, and the history of reading and writing materials. After reading the...
Curated OER
Oral History: Park City Museum
Bring U.S. history to your language arts class with this lesson. Middle schoolers complete an interview for an oral history project, and discuss the importance of oral histories - and how they embellish written accounts. They write...
Curated OER
Peer Editing Checklist
Peer editing can be fun and enlightening if it's done effectively. If you're having your class peer edit a general piece of writing (perhaps a personal response or short answer response), this graphic organizer could help. Reviewers look...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Gargoyles Galore
Grrrrr, gargoyles are on the loose! Young artists are familiarized with the history of gargoyles, examine pictures of them, and hear a story about them. Then, they draw a gargoyle and write down exactly how they did it (procedural...
Anchorage School District
Topic Sentences Wall Poster
Developing a topic sentence can be a real challenge for young writers. Make the process a whole lot easier with a poster that can be displayed in the classroom. The visual first describes the two parts of the topic sentence, the occasion...