Conneticut Department of Education
Instructional Strategies That Facilitate Learning Across Content Areas
Imagine 28 instructional strategies, appropriate for all subject areas and all grade levels. Directed Reading-Thinking Activities (DRTA), Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) activities, KWL charts, comparison matrixes, classification...
Curated OER
Role Models - Defining Positive Role Models
Being able to identify what characteristics make a good role model is one way for students to better understand their own positive behaviors. The class brainstorms what characteristics make up a good role model, research a role model...
Curated OER
Origami Ducks: Geometry, Listening, and Following Directions
Make origami ducks with your class to reinforce geometry concepts and vocabulary; develop fine motor and visual translation skills; and enrich study of Japanese culture, the pond habitat, or migration. Create a whole group "worksheet"...
Curated OER
Secret Life of Bees Research
The Secret Life of Bees provides high schoolers an opportunity to connect the events in the novel to events in America’s history. After choosing a topic from a provided list, individuals research how the event affected the Civil Rights...
Curated OER
Customized Topographic Maps and Models
Students explore the information depicted on topographic maps. They construct a 3-D topographic map of a local area. They go on a field trip to the depicted area and compare the 'real world' with their models.
Curated OER
Role Model Medal
Students investigate positive female role models. In this Women's History Month instructional activity, students read the book Mama Went to Jail for the Vote and think about how the character was a role model for other women. Students...
Curated OER
Compass Rose Directions
Second graders use cardinal and intermediate directions to locate places on maps and places in the classroom, school, and community. They draw a setting map of "Little Red Riding Hood." Students give five steps of cardinal or...
Curated OER
Co-Operation: Drama
For some schools, character-counts lessons are a big part of the curriculum. This resource focuses on following directions and the importance of being a cooperative team player. Learners role-play a variety of situations by being...
Teaching Tolerance
Musical Movement Showcase
Young performing artists create a song or choreograph a dance to illustrate a theme in a text they are reading. Step-by-step directions are included.
School Improvement in Maryland
Building a Pyramid
After reviewing the structure and powers of the three branches of the US government, groups investigate a problem and research what is being done to address this criticism.
Curated OER
Directional Terms
Students identify and demonstrate various locational terms, and examine how a globe is a model of Earth. They repeat words and movements for various finger plays to demonstrate locational terms, play directional words games, and sing a...
Curated OER
It's All Greek to Me!
While the ideas for Ancient Greek research are solid, there is little detail to help make your job easier. The focus here is familiarizing your class with online databases and print resources in their school library. After direct...
Curated OER
Hamlet Research Paper: Find, Evaluate, and Select Appropriate Research Sources
Help young researchers find credible sources online. Modeling with a Google search for information about Shakespeare’s Macbeth, use a computer projector or Smart Board to show class members how weak the top three search results are....
Curated OER
Map Readng And Giving Directions
Students read a story to create the context for the lesson plan. Then they are given or create a community map. Then students use the scenario of being lost in order to role play giving directions to a partner to find a destination. The...
Curated OER
Shaky New Zealand
Students explore Earth science by building a model in class. In this tectonic plate lesson, students identify the impact tectonic shifts have on humans and animals and where the plates and faults lie under New Zealand. Students examine...
Orange County Water Atlas
Location, Location, Location…
Young geographers discover not only how to read and recognize coordinates on a map, but also gain a deeper understanding of latitude and longitude and how climate changes can vary significantly across latitudes.
Curated OER
American Focus on World Constitutions
Upper graders read several passages to gain an understanding of the nations that have adopted a constitution similar to the United States Constitution. This is a scripted lesson plan that is intended to build content-specific vocabulary...
Curated OER
Paper Spider
Young artists don't have to wait for Halloween to craft eensy-weensy spiders. A one-page template includes directions and a pattern for the spider's body and legs. These little arachnids, hanging from the ceiling or the wall...
Newspaper Association of America
Community Connections with Geography and the Newspaper
Understanding geography and government begins at the local level. Using maps and the parts of a newspaper, a unit plan introduces the concept of community. It starts with the creation of classroom and school maps, and then moves through...
Visa
A Way to Wealth: Understanding Interest and Investments
Money motivates! Help young bankers understand how math plays a part in investing. Give learners math practice while instilling real-world financial literacy skills.
Kent State University
Teaching Ethics in Scholastic Journalism
Events in recent years have underscored the importance of a free and independent press in a democracy. Young journalists engage in lessons about the function of journalism in a democratic society, practice the steps of Bok's Ethical...
Curated OER
Writing Directions for Mathematical Activities
Fifth graders reorganize comic strips to have them make sense, complete outline and organize their thoughts into outline form to explain directions,
and use that outline to complete their own directions for geometry activities.
Curated OER
Make a Model of a Wright Flyer
Young scholars recreate a model of the 1903 Wright Flyer out of Styrofoam. Students practice following instructions, and discover information about the Wright brothers' engine-powered glider.
Curated OER
Heritage: Make a Model of a Typical Utah Settlement
Fourth graders examine the different types of settlements used in Utah. They take a community map of Utah past and present and compare the two. They create a model of the early types of settlements used by pioneers in Utah.