Balanced Assessment
Pick a Pattern or Two
Math is all about finding patterns. In this ask, scholars first investigate a sequence formed by squaring the sum of the digits in the previous term. They go on to investigate a second sequence and write an algebraic expression for this...
California Education Partners
Summer Olympics
Quickly get to the decimal point. The last assessment in a nine-part series requires scholars to work with decimals. Pupils compare the race times of several athletes and calculate how much they have improved over time. During the second...
Alberta Learning
Area and Perimeter of Irregular Shapes
Evaluate young mathematicians' understanding of area and perimeter with this series of three assessment tasks. Challenging students to not only calculate the area and perimeter of irregular shapes, but to explain in writing their...
Curated OER
Points of View
Cinderella is a classic love story when Cinderella is the protagonist—but what happens if a stepsister tells the story? Focus on point of view with a lesson about fairy tales and story elements. After reading a few familiar fairy tales,...
California Education Partners
Soccer Snacks
Make the cookies healthy. The assessment task asks pupils to determine the number of cookies they could make based on a given amount of ingredients. Given two sugar substitutes, learners determine which substitute would be better and...
California Education Partners
John's Trip Disneyland
It all adds up to one. Pupils solve several items that involve finding sums of fractions in relationship to a whole. The assessment task uses fractions with unlike denominators to determine the amount of a tank of gas and the amount of...
Cherokee County Schools
Simple Machines Project
The choice is simple: create a PowerPoint presentation, write a book, or invent a compound machine. Whichever project your young scientists choose, they will be engaged in creatively demonstrating their knowledge of simple...
Center for Applied Linguistics
Practical Applications of Fractions, Percents, and Decimals
Young architects are prompted to design a playground in assigned groups. Using a 10 x 10 grid. Your fifth graders will apply their knowledge of fractions, percents, and decimals to the real-world task of designing a playground....
NASA
Space-Based Astronomy on the Internet
Young scientists compile everything they have learned into a report in the fifth and final lesson in a unit on the visible light spectrum. Access to photos from observatories, telescopes, and satellites allows learners to compare...
Curated OER
Proofs Of The Pythagorean Theorem?
Even U.S. President James Garfield had his own proof of the Pythagorean Theorem! Pupils consider three different attempts at a geometric proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. They then select the best proof and write paragraphs detailing...
Balanced Assessment
Dot Patterns
Use geometric patterns to teach your class how to write functions. The assessment task has scholars consider a pattern of dots to draw the next picture of the pattern. Pupils then analyze the pattern, which helps them develop a function...
Balanced Assessment
Dollar Line
Challenge the class to develop a story that matches a graph. The short assessment provides a line graph with the vertical axis labeled as dollars. The task asks pupils to develop a description of a situation that could be represented by...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 7th Grade Math – Claim 3
Does the explanation make sense? Sample items highlight claim three, communicating reason, in the Smarter Balanced assessments. Teachers use the 16 items to help show pupils the importance of communication and reasoning within...
California Education Partners
Bake Sale
Work with fractional cookies. The three-part assessment task checks the pupils' ability to find the product of fractions and whole numbers, mixed numbers, or fractions. Learners determine the amount of ingredients needed and how many of...
Teaching Tolerance
Act Up! Drama for Justice
A lesson turns young historians into playwrights to understand and speak out against social injustice. Pupils work individually or in groups to write and perform monologues that deliver personal messages on social justice. Writers then...
Curated OER
Women’s Suffrage Movement
Though the movement for Women's Suffrage stretched over several decades and across two centuries, the final few years were the most difficult hurdle in many ways. Use a document-based question writing exercise to make inferences about...
New York State Education Department
English Language Arts Examination: August 2017
Reading and comprehending a poem is a lot different than doing the same for a piece of fiction or an informational text. As part of a sample English language arts examination, readers put their skills to the test by reading passages in...
Curated OER
Not Getting the News about the Stamp Act
How did American colonists react to the Stamp Act of 1765? Your young historians will examine primary source material by reading excerpts from a transcription of the Pennsylvania Gazette and then identifying the sentiments expressed...
NASA
Observing Monsoon Weather Patterns with TRMM Data
Follow a fabulous slide show on how monsoons form and how satellite technology is being used to observe the phenomena, explaining why they occur. Afterward, visit the TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) website to access actual...
Lerner Publishing
Meet the Dinosaurs
Take your class of youngsters on a prehistoric adventure with this four-lesson series on dinosaurs. Accompanying the Meet the Dinosaurs books by Don Lessem, these lessons engage children in writing their own dinosaur books,...
TESOL
Are You a Good Listener?
Your learners talk to each other every day, but are they really listening? Use a lesson based on listening skills to ensure that class members feel heard and respected. It includes games, discussion topics, and self-assessment tools...
Balanced Assessment
Books from Andonov
To examine mathematical functions in a modeling situation pupils combine quadratic and step functions to represent a presented scenario. They both graph and write a function to represent data shown in a table.
Code.org
Discover a Data Story
"Data is so boring, there's no way to find any patterns in them." Or is there? Pairs investigate data sets using different data visualization tools to discover a trend that may exist in a data set. Once they find a trend or...
Balanced Assessment
Red Dots, Blue Dots
Count the connections between dots. Young mathematicians come up with a method to determine the number of connections between pairs of dots. The assessment leads the class to determine the connections they can make when groups are...