Curated OER
Look It Up!
Sixth graders improve their writing skills by finding, defining, and correctly using new and interesting vocabulary words. Groups of students work together to find, define, and use in sentences ten words with which they are all unfamiliar.
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Speech Marks
Students will read through a transcript. They then brainstorm words that demonstrate that people are talking. Students then rewrite the transcript report as a description of the actual conversation.
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Research Project
Sixth graders use research, word-processing, graphic skills and a multi-media presentation. They complete a research project that meets the requirements for the Grade 6 Renaissance report.
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Pond Animals During The Seasons
Pupils interact with a CD Rom to examine pond life. In this pond life lesson, students access a CD Rom entitled "Sammy's Science House CD Rom" in order to see pond life during the different season of the year. They study the associated...
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Journeys
Students write a story using their journey to school as the setting. In groups, they discuss their experiences and browse through books to get ideas for their story. They practice using a thesaurus to find new verbs or adjectives they...
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Where to Look for the USA?
Fifth graders, in groups, explore the the type of reference sources are needed to answer a question. Each group identifies where the material was located, and the teacher records the guess.
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Learning Vocabulary by Using Reference Materials
Finding engaging ways to help your middle schoolers build their vocabulary is not easy to do. The lesson presented here offers a great way to motivate them to build vocabulary by making it into a game. Teams of pupils use a dictionary...
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Ornithology and Real World Science
Double click that mouse because you just found an amazing activity! This cross-curricular Ornithology activity incorporates literature, writing, reading informational text, data collection, scientific inquiry, Internet research, art, and...
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Homophone Cartoons
A terrific lesson on homophones awaits your youngsters. First, pupils access a website that contains lists of homophones. Then, it's time to get creative! Everyone gets a piece of poster board and they create a homophone cartoon -...
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"Me" Resource
Learners elucidate themselves by writing up to six entries in different formats. Some formatting choices include a dictionary, encyclopedia, or atlas entry, a magazine article, a newspaper article, and a table of contents. Some...
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Technopoet - Poetry Lesson Plans
Practice word processing while writing different types of poems. First, elementary and middle schoolers use Word templates to write poetry. They use rhyming and descriptive words as they work with clipart, text wrapping, and picture...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Byzantine Architecture
View Byzantine architecture from the comfort of your classroom. A PowerPoint presentation introduces important vocabulary terms and examples of Byzantine architecture in the ninth lesson of the 11-part series. A Jeopardy game reviews...
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Locating Information Quickly in a Variety of Resources
Here is a lesson plan which may be best suited for a library science teacher, or one that can be done by a regular teacher when in the library. In it, learners explore the best ways to use print and electronic resources to find...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Geometry in Architecture #1
Discover how to analyze architecture from a geometric standpoint. The fourth installment of an 11-part unit on architecture first provides a presentation on axis, balance, basic form, formal, pattern, proportion, symmetry, and tripartite...
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Nouns in a Story
Students, assessing a variety of formatting tools with Microsoft Word, utilize a bank of vocabulary words to make a personal dictionary of nouns. They classify nouns for people, places, things and ideas and separate them into common and...
Virginia Department of Education
The Writing Process for Persuasive Writing
Get your junior high writers stimulated with the strategies and ideas available in this activity. Learners discuss and debate controversial subjects, and outline their reasons with an online graphic organizer (link included) that creates...
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Desert Plant Detectives
Students examine and categorize plants in their own schoolyard desert garden and then observe other plant areas of their schoolyard.
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Become an Expert
Students are assigned a separate species of plant or bird to research. Using a worksheet, they are responsible for finding a variety of information on their assigned plant or bird. They also complete a mini-poster and give an oral...
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Children Around The World
Students read a multicultural book called "This Is the Way We Go to School" by Edith Baer and Steve Bjorhman. They become culturally aware of the different nationalities around the world and different ways that they may do things on a...
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Nurture Poetry
Students create a poetry book. For this poetry lesson, students write a cinquain poem, name poem, haiku, limerick, and preposition poem.
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Writing Myths I
Explain a natural phenomenon in an original myth. After researching the phenomenon they have chosen, young readers use factual information to include in their myth. They find synonyms and new phrases to create vivid images as they...
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Arctic Writing
Fifth graders analyze photographs in order to write descriptively. In this descriptive writing lesson, 5th graders use the Internet to research and view photographs of the arctic. Students use descriptive language to write...
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Color My World Grey and Blue
Can colors help to convey a mood in writing? Explore this question with your class using the songs "Grey Street" by the Dave Matthews Band and "Blu is a Mood" by Blu Cantrell. After analyzing the effect of the color words in these songs...
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Shizuko's Daughter: Concept of Definition Word Map
Help your class use critical thinking when it comes to unfamiliar words. With vocabulary from Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter, kids write the word in the center of a graphic organizer, and find its category, comparisons,...