Illustrative Mathematics
Shake and Spill
Entertaining as well as educational, this math activity about decomposing numbers is bound to capture the engagement of young learners. Given a cup and five two-color counters, young mathematicians simply shake and spill the cup,...
Illustrative Mathematics
3-D Shape Sort
From the apple on your desk and the coffee cup in your hand, to the cabinets along the classroom wall, basic three-dimensional shapes are found everywhere in the world around us. Introduce young mathematicians to the these common figures...
Birdville Independent School District
Friendly Numbers
There are a number of different strategies young mathematicians can use when adding two-digit numbers. This instructional activity focuses on making addition easier by rounding the addends to friendly numbers, with the resulting sum...
Curated OER
Rubrics for Assessing Student Writing, Listening, and Speaking Middle School
This is a fantastic collection of a wide variety of rubrics for writing, listening, and speaking! The resource contains over 14 rubrics for assessing such items as a summary, autobiographical sketch and narrative, speech, oral report,...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Function Tables
Each week Mia saves a certain portion of the earnings from her babysitting job. Help her figure out how much she can save this week with a step-by-step presentation on function tables. Given a set of inputs and outputs, the process for...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Determine the Missing Operation in an Equation
Deepen the number sense of your math class with a short presentation on writing equations. Using the relationship between numbers, young mathematicians learn how to determine the missing operator in an equation. A number of opportunities...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Addition & Subtraction Equations
Zoe is decorating a cake for her grandpa's birthday and needs to know how many more candles to add. Follow along as she explains how to set up and solve algebraic equations in this step-by-step presentation. Equations with negative...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Compare Fractions & Mixed Numbers
Follow along with RJ from the Study Jams! crew as he walks step-by-step through the process for comparing fractions with unlike denominators. Starting with finding the least common denominator, the presentation goes on to demonstrate how...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Add & Subtract with Common Denominators
RJ and Zoey are at camp and need to get back to the mess hall for lunch, but they don't know how far they have to walk. Help them figure out the distance while teaching young mathematicians how to add and subtract fractions with this...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Area of a Triangle
Even though there is a wide variety of different triangles in the world, knowing a single equation allows us to find the area of each and every one of them. Follow along with this step-by-step presentation as Zoe clearly models how to...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Probability as a Fraction
Pick a card, any card... and then follow along with this step-by-step presentation as Sam from the Study Jams! crew determines what chance he has of drawing a jack from a deck of cards. This context serves to clearly model how fractions...
All for KIDZ
Building Relationships: The Orphan of Ellis Island
Family and friendship are two very important themes of the historical fiction novel The Orphan of Ellis Island by Elvira Woodruff. From video clips and writing prompts to reader's theater and family interviews, this resource provides...
Education Closet
Equal Rhythms
Engage young mathematicians in learning about fractions with this cross-curricular math and music instructional activity. After listening to and repeating different beat patterns, children realize that musical notes are just another way...
Illustrative Mathematics
The Napping House
How many people and animals can cram into a single bed? Find out with this cross-curricular math and language arts lesson. Following along with a reading of the children's book The Napping House by Audrey Wood, young mathematicians add...
Curated OER
Music and Sports
With so much talent in the classroom, do your musicians and athletes have related interests? This problem has your learners taking data from their classmates to decide whether there is an association between the two activities. The...
Curated OER
Animal Brains
Do big bodies make big brains? Let your learners decide whether there is an association between body weight and brain weight by putting the data from different animals into a scatterplot. They can remove any outliers and then make a line...
Curated OER
Introduction to Ludwig van Beethoven
"Ode to la Tortilla" and "Ode to Joy"? Sure! Use Gary Soto's poem to introduce learners to the ode format. After examining the descriptive words Soto uses, class members study a poster of Ludwig van Beethoven, suggest words that describe...
PBS
Breaking it Down
After challenging themselves to correctly choose the form of erosion and length of time required for a given landform to develop, earth science class members model mechanical and chemical weathering with various lab demonstrations over...
Super Teacher Worksheets
Ten Frames
Developing a strong number sense in the primary grades is essential to the success of young mathematicians. These simple worksheets present learners with a series of ten-frames, asking them to write the number shown in each model....
Granite School District
Activities that Build Number Sense
Have fun while building the number sense of young mathematicians with this list of ten-frame learning games. From developing cardinality and counting skills to learning place value and basic addition strategies, ten-frames are excellent...
Math Solutions
Race to 20
And they're off! Working in pairs, young mathematicians roll dice to see who can fill in their double ten-frames first. When students finally fill in their arrays, they create addition number sentences that represent their rolls, helping...
Center for Math and Science Education
Volcano Model
When middle school earth science classes are covering volcanoes, they can cut out and construct a miniature model of a stratovolcano and its surrounding town. From the town side, the external features of the volcano appear. On the...
Center for Math and Science Education
Slump Model
Although it appears that this cut-out paper model makes a welcome activity, it is challenging to construct. It displays a square area of a town on a plateau undergoing slump or slope movement. While it is an outstanding model, the time...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Mean/Average
Join Zoe as she calculates the average number of points RJ scored in his basketball games. This step-by-step presentation clearly models the procedure for finding the mean of a data set, including examples with both whole number and...