Curated OER
African-American Autobiography for the Middle School Student
Students are introduced to the characteristics of an autobiography. For each author, they research their life and works and discuss why it reflects different time periods of African-Americans. In groups, they brainstorm characteristics...
Curated OER
An Exploratory Approach to the Teaching of French in the Middle School
Students review the most recent vocabulary list of French words. Using literature by Victor Hugo and Guy de Maupassant, they discover the history and culture of France. Using a map and the text, they locate the cities and regions of...
Curated OER
A Multiple Intelligence Approach to the Physiology of the Brain and How Middle School Students Learn
Pupils draw a poster of a lateral view of the brain in order to label the different lobes of the brain. They examine what causes some people to be more musically intelligent than others. They dissect a cow's brain and label the different...
Curated OER
Methods of Teaching Evolution To Middle School Children
Young scholars study evolutionary thought. They examine how characteristics are inherited and that they are a source of variation. They illustrate the perpetuation, elimination, and variation made among members of a species. They...
Curated OER
Native Plants at School -- A Garden Landscape Project
In this native plants at school -- a garden landscape project activity, students design the landscape for a school garden by identifying native plants, creating a presentation and creating a plot plan within the budget. This page has...
Insurance Zebra
Insurance Curriculum for Middle and High School Teachers
Liability, deductible, premium ... what do these words mean, and how do they relate to insurance? Scholars complete a pre-test, matching vocabulary activity, and insurance timeline worksheet and become familiar with these terms. Next,...
Bully Free Systems
Bully Free Lesson Plans—12th Grade
Two sample lessons from a curriculum unit on bullying provide high school seniors with an opportunity to assess their online and cell phone behavior and to consider how they can offer support to bullied students. Each plan includes an...
Bully Free Systems
Bully Free Lesson Plans—11th Grade
It takes courage to stand up to bullies. Two sample lessons from a complete Bully Free curriculum, "Courageous and Brave Bystanders" and "Assertiveness Skills for Bullied Students and Empowered Bystanders" provide participants with...
Curated OER
Incorporate Father's Day into Your Curriculum!
Projects ideas and simple classroom activities for honoring dads and classroom timelines.
Curated OER
Mathematical Treasure Hunt
The hunt is on! Young mathematicians follow clues and complete a series of ten math puzzles as they try to crack Dr. Integer's code and find the location of his hidden treasure.
Curated OER
Rhythmic Expression
Learners discover movement and expression to music/sound through a series of teacher-led exercises and role plays. This lesson is ideal for the middle school drama class with possibilities for adaptation to any level of drama or general...
Virginia Department of Education
Exploring 3-D Geometry
Take young mathematicians on an exploration of the world of 3-D geometry with this seven-lesson unit. After first defining the terms perimeter, area, and volume and how they apply to the real world, students continue on to learn the...
Curated OER
Tessellation Lesson Plan
Young scholars produce original tessellations, using equilateral triangles where three unique symmetrical faces rotate, use shape, pattern/repetition, and color to create a striking composition, and create "beasties" inspired by...
American Bar Association
News Literacy Model Curriculum in Social Studies
Scholars investigate news literacy in the twenty-first century. They use technology, legal decisions, writings, and digital privacy to analyze the topic. Using what they learned, a group assignment looks into both the challenges and...
Northern Ireland Curriculum
Money Wise
Does money seem to slip through your middle schoolers' fingers? Encourage them to examine spending, saving, and budgeting habits with a unit on consumer skills and money management. Young spenders study the waste that occurs with school...
RAND Corporation
Project ALERT
Why do people use drugs? What are the consequences? The alternatives? How can young people resist the pressures to use drugs? The Project Alert drug prevention program provides middle schoolers with the information they need and the...
Beyond Benign
All A Loan
When designing a house, it's important to know about percents. Through a series of three lessons, scholars first review percentages through an activity involving M&Ms and then apply that knowledge to calculate compound interest and...
Transforming Education
Self-Efficacy Strategies
Scholars with high levels of self-efficacy perform better in school. Instructors review a list of strategies for enhancing self-efficacy skills. They discover how to teach learners to appropriately define success, celebrate progress, and...
Baylor College
Microbes and Disease
Discuss how diseases have impacted human history. Divide your class into groups and assign each group one of the following: tuberculosis, malaria, plague, cholera, smallpox, and AIDS. They read up on, complete a concept map, and present...
Santa Ana Unified School District
The Power of Point of View
Sometimes a whole story can change based on the perspective of the person telling it. Practice identifying and analyzing point of view in various reading passages and writing assignments with a language arts packet, complete with Common...
Curated OER
Graphing the Temperature within the Atmosphere
Musing meteorologists design graphs of the temperature and pressure changes for altitude increase in our atmosphere. The activity is pertinent to middle school earth science curriculum. Vary the type of homework you assign when teaching...
Curated OER
Earth Materials - Geology and Plate Tectonics
Not going into depth on any one topic, this Earth science presentation skims the crust. It touches on the materials that construct the crust and then moves into plate tectonics. This is a useful and colorful note-taking guide for your...
National First Ladies' Library
Designing the Common School: The First Educational Reform
Middle schoolers perform preliminary research to explore education before public (common) education was in place. They design a public educational system of their own. Students construct a report outlining challenges and solutions for...
Curated OER
Folktales: Oral Traditions as a Basis for Instruction in our Schools
Pupils visit their school library to read a variety of folktales. While they read, they identify the trickster or hero in each and discuss how the character represents the chaos in the real world. In groups, they write their own...