National First Ladies' Library
Red Hunts, Black Lists, and Communists
Students research and examine the unsavory history of the hunt for communists in the United States during the 1950s. They divide up into groups to review the Red Scare of the 1920s as a backdrop to the McCarthy era and write a short...
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Author's Purpose
Fifth graders determine the meaning of author's purpose. For this author's purpose lesson, 5th graders apply the PIE (persuade, inform, entertain) strategy to determine why an author wrote a piece of writing. They examine passages and...
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Virtual Visits
Students rate a variety of kid-friendly museum Web sites for both their educational and entertainment value. They reflect in writing about the overall success of each site to pique their interest in art, science, history or culture.
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Media Literacy Discussion Guide
High schoolers examine and analyze visual media and its messages critically. They determine whether specific media messages inform, entertain, or persuade and what factors influence the media. Using primary sources, they participate in...
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Surface Area and Volume
Pupils are introduced to the notion of surface area and volume. Students review surface area and volume by finding the area of a two-dimensional shape. They practice using the computer to create different surface area shapes.
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What a Brave Little Girl
Young scholars practice relating non-fiction to knowledge they already have on the subject. They evaluate differences in the types of text structrures in non-fiction. They employ a review strategy that allows them to understand their...
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Universal Studios' Roller Coasters
Students read an article and review a type of graph or other graphic representation. They write a response to a ""Task"" that may be a letter, a report, or a speech to an interested group. In the written response they must refer to both...
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Bonus Activity: Build a House
Students complete a building activity using their knowledge of geometrical shapes, tools, and how to follow a plan from previous lessons in this unit. In this following directions instructional activity, students study the basic building...
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Point of View and Mentor Relationships
Tenth graders analyze the role of mentors, point of view, and prejudice using the texts of To Kill a Mockingbird and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. For this literature analysis lesson, 10th graders review Scout's...
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Where the Red Fern Grows
Students review chapters 1-5 from the book, Where the Red Fern Grows. They complete/answer comprehension cards and create an advertisement for a getting a pet of their dreams.
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Cinematic Poetry
Eighth graders explore the genre of poetry through the creation of a multimedia presentation. Students write a poem and create an Avid presentation of their poem for the class. The poems and presentations are peer-reviewed.
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Creative Inventions
Ninth graders develop ideas for an invention and write a persuasive essay explaining why their invention is best. In this invention essay lesson, 9th graders review persuasive essay writing. Students create a graphic web for an original...
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Energy Is Everywhere
Students determine the difference between renewable and non-renewable resources and identify the different forms of energy. They discuss life without energy and where energy comes from before reading an article about the different...
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The Social Skill of Communication
Fifth graders explore communication by analyzing manners. In this social skills lesson, 5th graders review the different forms of communication and how to present yourself in a phone conversation, face to face meeting, e-mail, etc....
Mind Snacks
SAT Vocab - MindSnacks
Who knew learning and practicing vocabulary for the SAT could be this absorbing? With 500 words to learn after an upgrade, and nine different games for practice, users are sure to feel prepared on testing day!
Royal Society of Chemistry
Multiples of Units (14-16)
Most mnemonics for remembering the metric system only include seven words. Scholars need to know a few more to complete the included puzzles. They match the prefix to the meaning, symbol, and multiple in a series of four increasingly...
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Undercover Vocabulary
Fourth graders, in groups, create a skit using identified vocabulary words and perform the skit for the class. They choose a place and a person to become such as Batman, Romeo and work all the vocabulary words into their skit. They...
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Magical Creatures
Students investigate entertaining characters within stories. For this writing lesson, students review nouns and adjectives and discuss magical characters. Students ask themselves questions about their selected characters and write a...
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Rudyard Kipling's "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi": Mixing Fact and Fiction
"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," from The Jungle Book, offers young readers a chance to examine how Rudyard Kipling uses setting and personification to bring to life the brave mongoose who battles cobras to protect his family. Class members explore...
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Geo Jammin' - Day 6, Lesson 20: Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here
Students use shape puppets to review geometry content. They take turns singing songs, reading students poems, reciting class bulletin board notes and choral poems. They prepare for their summative assessments through play and interview...
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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.
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I Nominate My Friend
Students review letter writing skills and the use of descriptive language, and practice writing persuasive letters, with help from teacher and peers. Letters are then written to nominate friend for Friend of the Year.
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Got the Whole World in My Hands
Young scholars review factors that threaten survival of different species. this lesson plan is part of a multi-segmented unit on animal survival.
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Number the Stars Chapter 15
Pupils analyze the theme of bravery in the book Number the Stars. They create a list of possible themes in Number the Stars. They review elements of a story, focusing on climax. They debate over the climax of the story.