Curated OER
Bioluminescence 2009: Living Light on the Deep Sea Floor Expedition - Now You See Me, Now You Don't
Learners examine bioluminescence and camouflage of deep sea creatures. In this deep sea creatures lesson, students investigate the visible and near-visible light spectrum. They work in small groups to complete a light, color, and...
School City of Hobart
Too Many Types Of Titles
Direct instruction on punctuation rules for titles is followed by collaborative practice in class. Two worksheets with aesthetically engaging graphic design provide practice. For 12 examples, small groups either underline, italicize, or...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Phonological Awareness: Phoneme Isolating, Bag-of-Sounds
In pairs, pre-readers take turns holding up objects from a bag. As one child holds up an object, the other names it and says its initial letter sound. They work together to sort the objects into piles based on how they isolated and...
Asian Art Museum
Create Your Own Samurai (Breastplate) Armor
Your class is going to love this activity. They get out their rulers, cardboard, and paints as they make Samurai breastplates. The simple art lesson lends itself to many different subjects such as, math/measurement, world history, and...
Global Change
Impact of a Changing Climate on the Pacific Walrus
How many of us can say they've seen a Pacific walrus? Not many and one of the reasons is the impact of climate change on their aquatic environment. Children get to think about the food web of the Bering Sea by creating an actual web with...
ARKive
Endangered Animal Easter Eggs
I love any lesson plan that addresses more than one subject area. You and your class will discuss endangered animals; each child will choose one animal and then create a decorated egg to represent their animal. After the eggs are...
Exploratorium
Marshmallow Puff Tube
Let physical science stars experience Newton's first law of motion by blowing marshmallows out of cardboard tubes! Using different lengths of tubing, they find that more force is needed to overcome increasing friction, and they have a...
Virginia Department of Education
Exploring Quadrilaterals
Sort this resource into the Use pile. Scholars investigate attributes of quadrilaterals and then use the results to sort and classify the shapes labeling each figure with their properties to justify the classifications.
Cornell University
Sound Off!
Time to witness the effects of sound. Learners analyze different materials to determine their abilities to absorb sound waves. They use free software to monitor the amplitude of the waves to verify results.
DiscoverE
Build a Pinball Game
Watch your classroom turn into an arcade. Pupils work in groups to build pinball machines from boxes and other found objects. Gamers must incorporate a variety of obstacles and launchers into the machine to see their designs in motion.
Curated OER
Technical Merits
What is technical knowledge? The class explores what technical knowledge might mean to an Olympic athlete. They catalog the different types of information that athletes would need to compete in various Winter Olympic sports and develop...
Curated OER
Yellow Bird and Me
Upper elementary artists create works which demonstrate an understanding of the many elements of theater and the visual arts. This four-day plan combines many wonderful aspects of visual, musical, and theatrical arts into one very...
Curated OER
Creating a Cartoon of the Philippine-American War
During the Industrial and commercial expansion of the United States, war broke out between America and the Philippines. Explore conflict, American Imperialism, and political cartoons with this creative project. Learners view the film,...
Curated OER
The Great State!
The creation of state home pages is the focus of this instructional activity. Learners research one of15 states for which special State Quarters have been released, and create a home page for that state. They also perform Internet...
Exploratorium
Far Out Corners
Construct a three-dimensional optical illusion when your class is exploring vision and how the eye and brain work together. Three concave corners are mounted inside of a black box, but as a light is shined upon them, they appear to be...
Run for Life
Warm Up Games
How fun! Get kids warmed up with these activities that promote physical fitness as well as teamwork. Find descriptions of warm ups as well as full games, including all equipment you will need. Relays, obstacle courses, and variations on...
DiscoverE
Touch Down
Protect the marshmallows! Groups create contraptions that will keep marshmallows in a cup, even after dropping them from a certain height. This is a fun way to model the shock-absorbing capabilities of spacecraft.
Curated OER
Persuaded or Informed?
Give each learner a newspaper for this instructional activity! As a group, read select editorials and discuss them with your class. Are these articles informational or persuasive? Cut out select editorials and have learners identify the...
Curated OER
Beary Necessary Rules
Young pupils learn about classroom rules as they also practice active reading strategies and reading comprehension skills. This lesson begins with a thorough reading of the story Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?. As the...
Curated OER
Physical Changes and States of Matter - One
Third graders study the three states of matter and identify the physical changes that take place between them. There is an initial teacher-led demonstration followed by a meaningful whole-class inquiry. These two activities should lead...
Curated OER
Sexually Transmissible Diseases (STDs), Day 4: Epidemiology
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or infections (STIs) are totally preventable. Yet, the number of cases is on the rise. Why? This health lesson contains a lot of information about prevention, as well as a great activity about how...
Curated OER
Inspired Innovation
Throughout time, innovators have taken basic ideas and changed them into creative and cutting-edge designs. Kids tackle the topic of innovations in relation to traditional or creative objects. They discuss traditional Navajo pottery then...
Curated OER
How Long Would It Take To Travel To the Stars?
Young scholars consider the amount of time that it would take to get to the star, Sirius using various modes of transportation, some practical and some whimsical. The practicality of physically going to another star system is explored in...
Curated OER
Transforming Negatives to Positives
Students create double-exposed photographs, poetry, and multimedia presentations to celebrate their Open Court "City Wildlife" unit.