Curated OER
Creating a School Web Site
Students create websites for their school. They work in groups as a web team and devise a self-management plan. As they work on projects reflecting school life, the team edits what may appear online as the school's web site. Writing...
Curated OER
Developing Kids with Character Through Service Learning
Young scholars discover service learning and how it can help them build character. For this community lesson, students brainstorm ways they can assist their classmates with problems, and write about it in their journal. Young...
Curated OER
Bee Kind Hearts
Learners promote random acts of kindness. In this character education lesson, students record acts of kindness that they witness on paper hearts. Learners create a chain of hearts to hang in the school.
Curated OER
Words Can Hurt: King Day
Students explore stereotyping. In this moral and character development lesson, students share reactions to a T-chart displaying what boys can do and girls can not do. Martin Luther King's accomplishments are discussed, and students...
Curated OER
Accentuate the Positive
Students analyze the attitudes, ideas and beliefs of characteristics that
assist humans in living a positive, proactive life that values self,
family, community, nation and world. Students identify their own strengths as individual....
Curated OER
City and Empire: Roman History, Planned Communities
Students research various planned communities and consider the pros and cons of such a development. They realize that planned communities have advocates and detractors and use these considerations when planning their own community.
Curated OER
Plants have needs, too!
Plants can die if they don't get enough sunlight and water. Kindergartners observe a picture of a hanging plant and grass under a tree, and interpret which each plant has died. Next, they grow watercress seeds in wet cotton to compare...
Curated OER
Hatching Chickens
Students observe chickens hatching in a classroom incubation environment In this egg-hatching lesson plan, students make observations of the hatching process and later care for the hatched chickens.
Curated OER
Leadership
Students list the qualities of a good leader as well as the various roles of group members. They discuss how good leaders help make the group more successful and identify people in their community who are good leaders. Students offer...
Curated OER
Similar and Different
Fourth graders observe a pair of students standing in front of the class and compare and contrast them using a Venn Diagram using these guidelines: eye color, hair color, older/younger, tallest/shortest, gender, favorite food, favorite...
Curated OER
Internet Research Assistant
Students are required to become Internet Research Assistants to a staff member or someone in the community and take that person on as a client. They develop a letter informing potential clients that they are available to do research for...
Curated OER
An Introduction to The Outsiders
Introduce S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders with a bell work journal that asks class members to define loyalty. Key words (patience, unity, honesty, caring, etc.), drawn from their musings, are posted around the room, and groups search for...
Curated OER
Careers With an Aquatic Emphasis
Students are introduced to careers with an aquatic emphasis. They take a self-evaluation test on what they enjoy in school to determine which career is right for them. They listen to people in the field discuss what their job is like.
Curated OER
Friendship and Belonging
Students identify and demonstrate various emotions. For this philanthropy lesson, students listen to the book, The Brand New Kid by Katie Couric, and brainstorm ideas to help new children feel welcome at school. Students role play the...
Curated OER
Vermiculture Food Waste Compost Program for Touchstone School
Learners explore the advantages of composting. In this recycling lesson students complete a worm compost project and collect food waste to feed them.
Curated OER
Giving Cheer
Students explore kind behavior. In this values development and literacy lesson, students listen to The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, then generate a class list of ways the tree helped the boy and ways in which the boy helped the tree....
Curated OER
Planting Phil's Garden
Students explore gardening. For this agriculture lesson, students plan and plant seeds according to the procedure modeled by a "master gardener." Flowers are distributed at a local retirement home.
Curated OER
Earth Day
Students examine evidence on Global Warming and then analyze the impact of their school community on the environment and propose ways to lessen our impact on the environment. They have access to a total of six articles for their...
Curated OER
Too Large to be a Lunatic Asylum: South Carolina’s Mental Health
Eighth graders examine the history of South Carolina's mental institutions. In this South Carolina history lesson, 8th graders discover details about asylums built in the state in the 1800's. Students analyze primary sources about mental...
Curated OER
Picturing a Story: Photo Essay About a Community, Event, or Issue
Students research Dorothea Lange's documentary projects and create their own photo essay about a subject. In this photo essay activity, students analyze examples of social-documentary photographs of Lange. Students define a social...
Curated OER
Respect for All Kinds of People Inside and Outside the School
Fourth graders explore the concept of respect. For this diversity lesson, 4th graders play the Untangle Game and complete a diversity puzzle. Students consider how to emphasize similarities over differences.
Curated OER
Respect: Looks Like, Sounds Like, Feels Like
Sixth graders participate in a question and answer discussion on respect and then complete the "Planning to Use Respect" activity sheet. They describe the senses of a stuffed animal to their peers and assess how respect looks, sounds and...
Thoughtful Learning
Doing Random Acts of Kindness
Encourage scholars to perform random acts of kindness. A lesson challenges participants to choose a peer they wish to be kind to without them knowing. Learners list five good deeds and choose one to fulfill. Pupils reflect on the process...
American Documentary
The Benefits and Drawbacks of Plea Bargains
The outcome of 90 percent of criminal cases in the US is determined by plea bargains. Clips from the documentary Better This World create the backdrop for an investigation of the benefits and drawbacks of the plea bargaining process....