Virginia Department of Education
Writing Counterarguments
This activity is better utilized as a peer-editing exercise and not as an activity on how to write counterarguments. Writers take their argumentative rough drafts, peer edit in groups of four, and review the author on common essay...
Curated OER
Newbery Medal Winners Quiz: 1990s
Fifteen questions cover nine Newbery-winning novels from the 1990s in this interactive quiz. Voracious individual readers can test their memory and comprehension, or groups can pool knowledge and work together to complete the quiz....
Virginia Department of Education
The Writing Process for Expository Writing
Struggling on what steps to take in your expository essay lesson? Or confused on what to include for your scribes? This exercise in the process of expository writing provides concepts and structure for the educator on what the writers...
Curated OER
Vocabulary Development
By utilizing a graphic organizer called a bubble map, young readers work toward developing their vocabulary. After reading a story, a word that has something to do with the story is put in the middle circle. Then, other words that have...
Curated OER
Plagarism and Crediting Sources
Before the activity begins, the teacher writes a paragraph about a favorite toy from his/her childhood. The paragraph is read to the class, and each of the sentences are closely looked at for details and support of the topic sentence....
Curated OER
Strategies for Organization and Elaboration of Personal Narrative
Personal narrative writing is usually a favorite form of writing for youngsters because they get to write about a personal experience. The lesson here asks pupils to take a piece of narrative writing and improve it by following...
Curated OER
Verbs and Synonyms
In this vocabulary skills worksheet, students review the definition for synonym and find examples using the verbs in the box to complete the 15 exercises.
Curated OER
Cecilia's Year
High schoolers read the novel "Cecilia's Year". They answer questions to test for reading comprehension. They also relate the story to their own life.
Curated OER
Here's an Instant Activity for February 16, 2004
Fourth graders complete a spelling activity that also improves their proofreading skills. In this spelling lesson, 4th graders read a list of words and proofread to find the word spelled correctly in each row.
Curated OER
Test Your Speaking and Listening Skills: Role Play-Shopping: ESL
For this ESL role playing worksheet, students role play taking merchandise back to a store. Students read 9 lines of script, a conversation between 2 students.
Curated OER
Comparing SLaves and Servants in Colonial New York
Young historians compare and contrast differences in the laws that regulated the activities of slaves and servants. They review and analyze a series of primary source documents to explain the social constructs related to slaves and...
Curated OER
Japanese-American Relocation
Consider the causes and effects that led to the internment and relocation of Japanese Americans during WWII. Learners read the story "Baseball Saved Us" and selected chapters from Farewell to Manzanar. Then, they view a slide-show, and...
US Citizenship and Immigration Services
Thanksgiving 1—Pilgrims and American Indians
The Pilgrims first arrived in America in order to gain religious freedom. Here is a instructional activity that takes the class on this journey with the Pilgrims, stopping to look at how they got here, who they met when they arrived, and...
Curated OER
Volleyball Online Quiz
Here's a website that allows you to create quizzes and/or tests for your PE classes. There is a link to the general website and there is a link to this specific example of a volleyball quiz. It's a multiple choice quiz and the pupils...
National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science
Breast Cancer Risk
How does one determine whether or not someone is at risk for breast cancer? Find out through a comprehensive case study involving two readings and a group activity in which learners assess four women's potential for acquiring the...
It's About Time
Identifying Matter
High schoolers test wood splints that have been soaked in mystery solutions to identify the different colors it produces when lit. The lesson concludes with a reading passage and analysis questions.
Curated OER
The Outsiders
Are you working on an Outsiders unit? Use this list of activities to deepen your middle schoolers' understanding of the novel. After reading S.E. Hinton's novel, young readers work on three required activities, including participating in...
Curated OER
Local Motives
Investigate current local elections across the United States with this New York Times reading activity. Using informational text, middle and high schoolers research local elections and create their own news reports about what they...
Curated OER
Forming Open-Ended Questions
Help readers learn to create their own open-ended questions for any text you are working with. Using Bloom's Taxonomy, learners begin on the lower levels and work their way up to form questions that focus on synthesis instead of simple...
Curated OER
Arctica - An Interactive Mystery
Rumours of illness, poisoning, and madness - a ship disappears without a trace! Read this interactive science story and use deductive reasoning skills to solve a mystery. This engaging resource gives science stars a chance to practice...
Curated OER
A Colony is Born : Lesson 5 - Dear Mem
Discover colonies! Young historians will listen to a primary source journal entry read aloud with a backdrop of wave sounds. They discuss the entry, add historical facts to a chart and personal insights to another. Then they listen to...
Curated OER
Sink or Float
Second graders explore floating and sinking and make predictions about whether certain objects are likely to sink or float. They read the story Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen. Pupils loacate rhyming words and discuss the events of...
Washington Township Public Schools
Using Paired Text
Paired reading passages frequently appear on standardized exams, but finding text sets to use in the classroom is sometimes a challenge. A lesson plan on using paired texts includes a selection of passages and a graphic organizer for...
Curated OER
Trash Talkin
Young scholars investigate recycling at several scales, including local, state, national and global. They become aware of recycling, re-use, reduce efforts and policies. Students read the article Where Does Your Garbage Go. They look up...