Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Lesson 2: Gorongosa National Park
How has Gorongosa National Park changed over time? Discover the park's rich history, dating back to primitive human times, through an interactive timeline and scientific reading. The second installment in an eight-part series explores...
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How green is your school?
Students read about Sidwell Friends School and the Green School concept and develop coverage for their student media. They employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to...
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How green is your school?
High schoolers read about Sidwell Friends School and the Green School concept. They develop coverage for their student media. Students interview administrators, janitors, teachers and high schoolers. They present findings to the class.
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Verbal Cues
Help young learners practice drawing conclusions and using reasoning through this simple game idea. The teacher places a mystery object in a bag and learners must ask yes/no questions until they guess what it is correctly. As a model of...
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Real and Make Believe
Young readers sort pictures into real and make believe categories. In this real and make believe lesson plan, students have a discussion about things that are real and things that are make believe.
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New Information
Young readers explore informational texts as they read a text entitled Giant Pandas by Gail Gibbons. The teacher will begin by explaining that one characteristic of informational texts is that they teach the reader new information and...
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Substituting Nouns
Let's practice substituting pronouns for nouns! In this writing sentences lesson, learners identify nouns and pronouns and replace the underlined examples. They complete a worksheet which are provided by grade level.
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Lesson 2: Feelings
After reading the story, David, No! and creating a chart of David's feelings, youngsters discuss how they knew how he felt throughout the story. They discuss using prior knowledge and picture clues to determine how the main character...
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Magical and Mystical Details
Identify magical and mystical details in the tales The Legend of Bluebonnet and The Legend of Old Befana. Talk about seemingly impossible details and illustrations in order to demonstrate the qualities of legend and magic. Encourage...
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Using a Title to Determine Main Idea (Nonfiction)
Young readers explore a nonfiction text for its main idea. They will listen to the book Animal Sight by Kirsten Hall, and then observe as the teacher models a main idea think-aloud. Later, for independent practice, they listen to the...
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Sorting Characters in More Than One Way
Introduce your class to characterization. Familiar story characters are sorted into "good" and "bad" categories based on the characters' personalites and actions in the story. The class discusses and describes characters they have read...
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Prefixes
Learners explore prefixes, and how they help us decipher unknown words. Decode and define the meaning of boldface words with prefixes used in context on a classroom chart. Writers complete a worksheet practicing the same skill.
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Dictionary
Discovering different ways to use a dictionary to find the meaning of unknown words is the focus of this language arts lesson. Everyone reads a story and practices finding unknown words in the dictionary.
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Lesson 3: Proving Facts and Forming Opinions
Time for Kids: Butterflies is used to model the process of determining if a text is based on fact or opinion. Children are taught how to skim for key words, and use headings or chapter names to locate proof of whether or not what they...
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Analyzing Sequence with Exception Questions
Can you build comprehension by reading about sports? Third graders read and analyze the story, Game Day. They work through the book to better understand the sequence of events, they practice eliminating incorrect answers to questions...
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Lesson 5: Theme Matters
Young scholars explore themes in fiction with this literacy comprehension lesson. They generate ideas for possible themes developed in the fairy tale of The Ant and the Cricket. Next, they examine the plot of The Great Gilly Hopkins and...
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Events and Effects
Explore the plot structure in biographies. First, read the biography The Story of Jackie Robinson, Bravest Man in Baseball and identify specific events that possibly changed the life of Jackie Robinson. As you guide your listeners, they...
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A Poem's Theme
Show young poets how to use the main idea and voice to determine the theme of a poem. Model the steps using Listen Children. Lucille Clifton’s This Morning provides guided practice. Finally, class members use Nikki Giovanni’s Legacies...
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Figurative Language
Fifth graders identify and categorize figurative language in poetry.They read a poem and find an example of figurative language, then read the included hand-out on figurative language, and describe each type of figurative language. They...
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Thinking about Theme
Sixth graders explore theme in science fiction texts by examining how plot conflicts are resolved. This resource focuses on Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, but the approach and guiding questions could apply to a variety of texts.
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Multiple Perspectives
Analyze multiple perspectives in short stories. Sixth graders examine the point of view of each major character in three different short stories. After reading the stories, they role-play characters and hypothesize about the character's...
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Using Plot Elements to Retell a Story
The stories in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street form the basis for a lesson on plot elements. The class examines introduction, sequence, problem, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution and identifies these...
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Marking Sentences
Test the identification skills of your class! Learners are required to mark 18 sentences for the prepositional phrases, infinitives, subjects, and verbs used in each. Some of the sentences are a little confusing with all of these parts...
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Genre Lesson: Historical Fiction
Take a trip through history with a lesson on historical fiction. With instructions for games, reading activities, and literary analysis assignments, this resource would be a great addition to any reading unit with a historical fiction...