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Language Arts: Digital Commercials
Students create commercials using a digital camera. After brainstorming their ideas, they spend three days writing their commercials. Students practice and edit their commercials and then present them for review.
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Ticky Plans His Trip to Antarctica to See Tacky
First graders participate in a creative problem solving activity to help Ticky get to the Atlantic Ocean. They identify Ticky's problem, brainstorm ways to solve the problem, and develop a plan. They write the steps Ticky needs to take...
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I Went Walking
Students take pictures. In this nature walk lesson, students read I Went Walking and brainstorm a list of things they might see on a nature trail. Students take pictures of things they see on the nature trail, write a caption for each...
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Freckle Juice
Students complete activities with the book Freckle Juice by Judy Blume. In this literature lesson, students read chapter one and brainstorm adjectives for the four main characters. They make a page of vocabulary words and definitions.
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Halloween Literature Unit: Little Critter’s Halloween
Students are read Happy Halloween Little Critter, by Mercer Mayer. In this emotions lesson, students discover how their mood is often affected by their feelings. They discuss the story as a class and then work independently on a...
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ESL Network: Tezen, A Haitian Folktale
Sixth graders brainstorm various types of friendships prior to reading "Tezen," a tale about a young girl's friendship with a fish. After writing story reviews, they work in small groups to create dramatic skits based on the text and...
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Monster and Myths: Scripts
Students explore characteristics of the myth genre. In this myth lesson, students become familiar with various myths and the cultures they were derived from. Students compare in a graphic organizer. Students write original myths and...
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Personification Poems
Personification poems can get students writing and thinking poetically.
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Storytelling in the Oral Tradition
Seventh graders research Greek mythological characters. They write about problems faced by middle school-aged children and how the character would handle them. Students also create story boards to accompany their oral narratives.
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Confusable Letter Pairs
Students practice distinguishing between pairs of similar-looking lowercase letters, such as b and d, p and b, m and w, n and m. They distinguish between easily-confused letter pairs by reading and listening to a story that highlights...
National First Ladies' Library
How Do Flowers Get Their Names?
Students study Carolus Linnaeus and his classification system of plants. They examine the origin of both both common and scientific names of flowers. They speculate how their favorite flowers came to be named and brainstorm about the...
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Making the Right Choice
Students, after discussing and brainstorming a variety of character traits, prepare to incorporate the traits into their own lives. They create, design and present an Interactive PowerPoint presentation with problem solving skills and...
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Sergei Prokofiev's "peter And the Wolf": Learning And Creating
Students write their own version of "Peter and the Wolf". They explore the characters and the instruments that represent the characters. They use graphic organizing software to brainstorm ideas for characters and story lines for...
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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Students read about weather and create a computer log about weather. In this Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs instructional activity, students listen to the story and discuss different weather patterns. Students develop a list of...
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From Zero to Superhero
Students discuss superheroes, focusing first on the details of creating the character of Batman. They work in small groups to develop superheroes for the 1990s, and write stories or cartoons about their superhero's adventures on their own.
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Story Telling with Black & White Photography
4th-8th graders will explore Wright Morris' photography and create their own black and white photographs. They will then use the photographs to portray a message they want communicated by writing a narrative telling a story about the...
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Plains Indians Pictographs
Students explore methods of written communication. In this Plains Indian lesson, students create pictographs representing everyday modern life after observing the pictographs used by the Plains Indians. Pictograph stories are written on...
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Sense of Sight
Students examine the sense of sight. In this human biology lesson, students read the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and discuss all of the animals seen in the story. Students use binoculars and take several digital photos...
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Shape Shifters- Trees and the Environment
Students make a tree sculpture. In this trees and the environment lesson, students learn about the parts of a tree, discuss what a tree needs in order to grow, find images of trees in art and nature, use various materials to create a...
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Resolving Conflict
Students observe the best ways to resolve conflicts. In this problem solving activity, students read and evaluate a Clifford story about how he could have resolved conflict. A strategy of resolving conflict is given, and students role...
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Legends Old and New
Young scholars listen to a Native American legend and discuss the basic elements of story. In small groups they read and analyze more legends from books and Websites. Then they compose and present an original legend.
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Take Time to Save Now
Students brainstorm reasons to save money, investigate impact of saving regularly using interactive, on-line calculators, explain how compounding interest affects savings, explore different strategies for saving money, and write personal...
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The Teller of the Tale, Part 2
Students discuss character types and their qualities. They select two characters and write about their dress, speech, habits, attitudes and beliefs. They write a monologue as the characters presenting a moral theme.
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Coming to America
Students interview a person who has immigrated to America and, based on that interview, to write an article about the person.