Civil War Trust
Genealogy
The Civil War is undoubtedly a part of America's history, but could it be part of your pupils' history as well? Middle schoolers conduct research to discover a connection between their ancestors and the American Civil War. Whether they...
Computer Science Unplugged
Conversations with Computers—The Turing Test
Will the real computer please stand up? The premise of this activity is for the class to ask questions to a human and to a computer and to determine which is which. The class asks a given set of questions, and the person playing the role...
Balanced Assessment
Confetti Crush
In the first part of a middle school assessment task, learners analyze a given statement about the amount of confetti revelers throw at Times Square on New Year's Eve. The second part of the task requires learners to identify objects...
Peace Corps
Community
What is a community? Find out with a lesson that sheds light onto the different types of communities—school, local, and global. Scholars read informational text detailing the life of a young girl from Cape Verde and take part in a...
Urbana School District
Waves
What is a physicist's favorite part of sports? Doing the wave. The presentation covers longitudinal, transverse, surface, and standing waves. It includes in-depth information on frequency, wavelength, period, amplitude, reflection,...
EngageNY
The Computation of the Slope of a Non-Vertical Line
Determine the slope when the unit rate is difficult to see. The 17th part of a 33-part series presents a situation that calls for a method to calculate the slope for any two points. It provides examples when the slope is hard to...
National History Day
Leland Linman’s War: A Look at Soldiers’ Daily Lives in World War I
Hunkering down in the trenches of World War I, Leland Linman decided to write a journal about his experiences. By reading Linman's entries in the fourth installment of an eight-part lesson series, scholars get a firsthand look at life in...
California Academy of Science
The Heat is On: Cause and Effect and Climate
The higher the number of letters in the final word for the National Spelling Bee, the higher the number of people killed by venomous spiders. Obviously, those two facts correlate, but no causation exists. Scholars view data based on...
Utah Education Network (UEN)
7th Grade Poetry: Assess
To assess what scholars have learned throughout a five-lesson poetry unit, seventh graders first craft a Shakespearean sonnet based on a poem they have studied. In part two of the assessment, scholars complete a four-texts performance task.
Curated OER
The Green Truck Garden Giveaway
Students read "The Green Truck Garden Giveaway" and explore the hobby of gardening. After observing illustrations in the book, students predict possible events in the story. They discuss gardening and write a story about a community...
Curated OER
Commas vs Semicolons
Middle schoolers arrange sentences to create correct punctuation use with commas and semicolons. Using FANBOYS, they define and recognize subordinate (dependent) vs. independent clauses, and other necessary parts of a sentence. They...
Curated OER
It's Magic: Understanding the Roles, Responsibilities, and Requirements of Workers
Fifth graders investigate the world of work in relation to knowledge of self and to make informed career decisions. Then they break into groups to complete the training and education for two careers selected from a listing in the lesson....
Curated OER
Visual Analogies
Here are four questions which require learners to examine four pairs of visual analogies and then choose a figure that completes a missing part of an analogy that is the same as the one shown. They then get to create their own visual...
Curated OER
The Princess's Point of View
Everyone wants to be part of a royal family. Let your pupils experience the privilege of royalty by rewriting the story The Frog Prince from the point of view of the princess. While the story line remains the same, perspective is bound...
Curated OER
Career Development: Interviewing
Prepping pupils for the real world is a vital part of our job. This activity focuses on getting upper graders ready for their first post-collegiate job interview. They will prepare a resume, research a potential company to work for, and...
Curated OER
Days and Seasons
Introduce young scholars to calendars as they practice the days of the week and four seasons. First graders complete three days-of-the-week sequences, each starting on a different day. They can reference the completed sequence example...
Alabama Department of Archives and History
Montgomery Bus Boycott: We Would Rather Walk!
Have historians use primary sources to learn about the circumstances and implementation of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and think about the issue of boycotts as a means of effecting social change. Wrap it up with a letter to the editor...
Illustrative Mathematics
Should We Send Out a Certificate?
Fred thinks his test score is high enough to earn him a certificate. Given the mean and standard deviation, use properties of normal distributions to calculate Fred's percentile ranking and see if he is right. Consider having your class...
Illustrative Mathematics
The Stamp Collection
By using language like "half of the stamps," children are exposed to patterns in arithmetic that requires solving a two-step word problem. This type of language opens a new door for transitioning learners toward understanding fractions...
Curated OER
Rainy Day? P.E. Anyway!
If your PE class is faced with bad weather and must stay indoors, try one of these activities to keep them engaged and moving! Activities involve working in teams, identifying sports or parts of the body, coordination practice, and/or...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a great story to share with your class, and this lesson plan focuses on just that story! The eighth in a fourteen-lesson plan series on short stories, the plan has learners study some vocabulary, read...
Humanities Texas
Primary Source Worksheet: Thomas Jefferson, Message to Congress on the Embargo
Zounds! Image an American president closing all ports and prohibiting exports. As part of an exercise designed to strengthen primary source comprehension skills, readers examine Thomas Jefferson's 1808 message to Congress urging such an...
K12 Reader
The Ransom of Red Chief
Readers identify the irony in the ransom note to Ebenezer Dorset and his reply as part of a reading comprehension activity using O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief."
Reading Resource
/er/ Word List
As part of a phonemic awareness exercise, kids identify and highlight the /er/ sound in a list of 59 words and then read these words to an adult. The activity is the sixth in a series of 16 resources designed to develop the awareness...