Macmillan Education
Sine and Cosine Graphs
Learners compare and contrast sine and cosine graphs in order to describe their characteristics in a collaborative activity. As they explain their reasoning, learners strengthen their writing and vocabulary skills associated with...
Roads to Success
Introduction to Team Building
What can working in a group trying to build the tallest tower possible using only tape and drinking straws get you? A great opportunity for developing collaborative team-building skills!
Virginia Department of Education
The Cycles of Nature
Encourage peer collaboration and assist with the creation of visual aids to identify carbon, water, and nitrogen cycles as your class learns more about nature. They discuss relative information, create a visual aid...
Curated OER
How Diverse is That?
Compare various types of biological diversity in a coral reef and calculate a numeric indicator that describes the diversity found in coral communities. Your class can work in groups to look at the abundance and distribution data of...
Curated OER
Cartoons for the Classroom: Presidential Candidates
Build critical analysis skills with this cartoon for the classroom. Upper graders answer three critical thinking questions to help them analyze a political cartoon, which depicts how Presidential Candidates are judged and chosen. Put...
Indiana University
Asian Literature: “The View in Spring” by Du Fu
Over the course of the lesson, your pupils read and analyze a translated eight-line poem from the Tang Dynasty written by Du Fu, a poet caught behind enemy lines during the An Lu-Shan rebellion (755-763). Literary/historical context is...
Curated OER
Do These Add Up?
Common Core mathematical practices require that young mathematicians not only know how to add fractions with unlike denominators, but also to recognize when adding fractions are appropriate for the word problem. Fifth graders are given...
Center for Civic Education
The Power of Nonviolence: Change Through Strategic Nonviolent Action
How did major historical figures, such as Henry David Thoreau, Susan B. Anthony, and Mohandas K. Gandhi, explain and defend their beliefs in nonviolence? Your learners will begin by studying the backgrounds of these individuals, and then...
Curated OER
Taxes and Sales
Collaborative discussions around this retail store problem will be taxing. Calculating discount and tax and the order of the operations are used to motivate an opportunity for learners to make a convincing argument using algebraic...
Curated OER
Building a Quadratic Function Form
Comparing the movement of graphs geometrically when small changes are made to the parent function motivates this collaborative discussion on the transformations of functions to their various forms. Vertical and horizontal shifts due to...
Federal Reserve Bank
Worth!
Before loaning a friend money, what factors would you consider and why would you lend it? Your young economists will face questions like these in a lesson on banking, profit, risk, and reward, which includes the reading of the book...
Google
Be Internet Awesome
Teach the qualities of a digitally smart citizen with a set of lesson plans created by Google. Along with creating strong passwords, learners explore how to protect their privacy, when to stand up for others against cyberbullying,...
Visa
Making it Work Together: Money and Roommates
Balancing money and first-time roommates can feel like a daunting prospect. Support your class members in understanding how financial agreements between roommates function, as well as the underlying importance of how to communicate about...
Curated OER
Galaxy Adventure
Working in groups, learners create a mnemonic device, give an oral presentation, and create a pictorial representation of the correct sequence of the planets and asteroid belt from the sun. An assessment rubric is included in the lesson.
Curated OER
Shaquille O'Neal Hand & Foot Span
If Shaquille O'Neal wears a size-20 shoe, how big are his hands? Learners will use the average ratios of foot length to hand span to calculate the hand span of Shaq, but first, they have to collect the data! They will...
Poets.org
Ghosts and Spirits
Connect poetry to a naturally kid-friendly topic: ghosts! Draw on your class's prior knowledge of the paranormal to help them access the classic poem "Haunted House" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. After a fun warm-up activity describing...
Curated OER
Expression: Masks - Activity 1
Students create art plans for an "installation" after viewing a video of Native American mask making that centers around the Salmon rack idea. Emphasis is placed on collaborative work in this introductory lesson plan.
Alabama Learning Exchange
CELEBRATE!
Strengthen research skills by reviewing the months of the year and the holidays celebrated during those months. Learners draw and label a timeline for the months and label each holiday. They work in groups to research the holidays, and...
Curated OER
Comparing Michigan to Other States
Fourth graders work in groups of 2 or 3 and choose a state to compare with Michigan. They use the Internet to locate information on other states allowing students time to research how Michigan compare to their state and incorporate their...
Curated OER
Who Is the Best Person for the Job?
Fourth graders work in groups of four, they are the managers of a new company, needing to hire employees. They brainstorm what they believe is important information to know about a future employee and share their list with the class....
Curated OER
What's Shaking? Three-Lesson Unit
Your young architects use the Internet to research tall structures or sky scrapers to help in the design of their scale drawings. This is lesson one of three in which learners design, build, and test model skyscrapers for seismic safety....
Curated OER
Human Embryo Development and Birth Defects
Open this lesson with a discussion on birth defects. Break the class into groups to visit a website and learn about what happens at each stage of human embryo and fetal development. Assign each group a particular birth defect to...
Curated OER
Help Me Learn About the Holocaust
Young readers select a book from a provided list to use as the basis for an intensive class study of Holocaust novels. After completing their novels, groups create a multimedia presentation highlighting the elements of literature...
Curated OER
Becoming Part of the Action
Students improve visualization skills through role play, texture identification, and storytelling. They discuss connections between a painting and their own lives.