Curated OER
Can You Get the Signal?
What is a signal word? Recognizing these words is an important step in both reading and writing formal text. Review a list of signal words (provided and organized into specific categories), and then have your class play a game to...
Curated OER
Two Sides, Same Coin: How Political Beliefs Influence Language Use
Learners read several magazine articles on the same topic written from different political perspectives, paying particular attention to the diction, syntax, and arguments presented in support the point of view expressed. They then select...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Process of Reading
Assist your pupils with literary analysis by discussing and exploring theme. This plan, the twelfth in a series of fourteen, builds in some time to explore theme as a class. Learners also blog about the main event in their stories and...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Imagine a day in the life of a child who has to work 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week. After viewing images and reading stories of child laborers, class members select an image and write a richly detailed narrative about a typical...
Newseum
Putting the Consumer's Questions to Work
Who, what, when, where, why, and how are good questions to ask when evaluating a source. First, scholars find two sources of information relating to a chosen topic. Next, pupils complete a worksheet to gauge the source's credibility....
Channel Islands Film
Magic Isle: Lesson Plan 3
Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about the...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Advanced Phonics: Morpheme Structures, Compound Construction
A phonics lesson focuses on morpheme structures—compound words. Pairs choose letter cards, identify a compound word that starts with that letter and write it on a whiteboard. Extension opportunities include additional practice pages.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Color Variation over Time in Rock Pocket Mouse Populations
A species-specific look at natural selection, the resource herein examines how adaptations have helped the population of rock pocket mice survive in a changing landscape. To begin, middle or high schoolers watch a 10.5 minute video,...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Phonological Awareness
Kindergarteners and first graders alike are engaged as they learn the initial sounds of objects by taking turns flipping cards to form a long train. This complete and ready-to-print activity helps young ones build the basic foundations...
Fluence Learning
Writing an Argument: Is Electronic Communication Helpful or Harmful?
Technology has undoubtedly improved the lives of people around the world—but has it improved communication? Seventh graders read two informative passages about the rise of texting and emailing versus in-person conversations before...
Texas Center for Learning Disabilities
Second-Grade Comprehension-Based Intervention
Help your youngsters find meaning in the text they read with this series of five intervention lessons. Offering explicit, step-by-step instructions for walking children through shared readings of leveled books, these...
Smithsonian Institution
The Music of the Mardi Gras Indians
The traditions, costumes, and the music of the Mardi Gras Indians, African-Americans and those with African American or Native American Heritage are the focus of a unit that introduces class members to a little-known group that plays a...
Texas Center for Learning Disabilities
Fifth-Grade Text-Based Intervention
Look no further—here's a resource packed with focused intervention materials for special education teachers. A unique unit plan provides 10 days of structured text-based intervention strategies for fifth-grade learners. Each 30-minute...
University of California
The Cold War (America)
The Cold War—with its roots in World War II—impacts the world today. Using an extensive curriculum, scholars consider its impact through primary sources, including speeches and propaganda, as well as other skills-enhancing activities. An...
PBS
Stories of Painkiller Addiction: Prescription Drug Abuse Awareness Campaign
The I-STOP law was designed to regulate the distribution and tracking of prescription drugs. After reading an article about its signing and implementation, middle and high schoolers work together to come up with their own ideas for an...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Visualizing Gene-Expression Patterns
How do genetics gurus know so much about gene expression? See traits materialize before your very eyes using a presentation with embedded simulations. Science scholars develop an understanding of the techniques used to follow the work of...
Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, University of Texas at Austin
Sight Word Fluency Lists 46 to 60
Reading takes place one word at a time. Increase scholar word recognition fluency and create better readers with sight word fluency lists. Readers continue to practice each list until they prove mastery.
Media Smarts
Television Broadcast Ratings
Explore the relationships between programming, advertising, and the ensuing rating wars. Help develop the media smarts of your pupils through this examination of advertisers for popular shows. Although the included Sweep Chart features...
Space Awareness
How To Travel On Earth Without Getting Lost
Have you ever wanted to travel the world? Take a virtual trip with a geography lesson that uses longitude and latitude, the position of the sun, an astronomy app, and a classroom globe.
iCivics
Mini Lesson: Judicial Activism and Restraint
Scholars analyze the United States judicial branch as it pertains to activism and restraint. They use research to define the roles the courts play while at the same time investigate current events to identify how the media covers those...
iCivics
Mini Lesson: Supreme Court Opinions
The court of last resort. Historians research, using current cases and issues, the impact the Supreme Court of the United States has on how our nation operates. They analyze recent decisions made by the nine judges and determine how the...
Curated OER
Pizza Sticks
Kids won't just follow a recipe to increase their cooking ability, they'll use it to locate information in a text. They read the simple recipe, then use information from the recipe to fill in the blanks in a story that shows one person...
Time For Kids
A Peaceful Leader
The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's life and message is just as important today as it was in his lifetime. Introduce elementary learners to the movement for civil rights with a timeline of Dr. King's life, as well as comprehension...
Smithsonian Institution
Voices of Bull Run
Soldier's lives are often a topic when studying the Civil War, but what about the lives of civilians? Scholars use the characters from the novel Bull Run to better understand the lives of those not directly on the Civil War battlefields....