Curated OER
Can small actions change the World?
Students review some examples from the website "We Are What We Do" and examine the impact of lots of people making small changes to their lifestyles. They complete a worksheet to introduce them to the variety of challenges. Students...
Curated OER
Shorten the Length
Learn how to summarize by identifying main ideas and supporting details. Readers cross out unimportant information as they read through a text. Is it a random detail? Cross it out! They then draw a concept map, placing the main idea in...
San José State University
MLA Formatting Guidelines: Ellipsis for Omissions
If you would like a concise overview of MLA formatting, this two-page handout provides it. It addresses page layout, parenthetical citations, and works cited (including when and how to use ellipses to indicate an omission), but it does...
Curated OER
Creating a Collage
Fifth graders identify and describe the characteristics of collages. They familiarize themselves with the history of collage making. They select pictures from magazines that relate to their chosen word of the week. They design a collage.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The Progressive Era: Muckrakers
Using Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, guide your class in the process of identifying unknown terms using context clues and formulating text-based answers. The lesson plan includes a useful worksheet incorporating scaffolding questions on an...
Curated OER
Rain Forest Stencils
Fourth graders explore animals of the rain forest. They create a drawing of an animal in the rain forest. Students research the animal and write a paragraph about the animal. They use a stencil to create a picture of a rain forest animal.
Curated OER
Biodiversity
Pupils complete activities to study the importance of biodiversity. In this biodiversity lesson, students find images to categorize into organism groups and illustrate their interconnections. Pupils use measurement tools to study a...
Curated OER
Programming and PB&J
Students use peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a method for learning computer programming skills. In this computer programming lesson, students write a detailed, step-by-step program for how to make a peanut butter and jelly...
Curated OER
Dolphin Dive
In this reading worksheet, students complete several paragraphs about dolphins by filling in the word that best completes the sentence. Thirteen words are included to complete the paragraphs.
Curated OER
poem "Smart" by Shel Silverstein from "Where the Sidewalk Ends"
Middle schoolers incorporate their conceptual understanding of proportions to write a creative piece similar to the example poem.
Curated OER
Varied Word Choice
Fifth graders examine how to use a variety of word choices when writing. They discuss how using more descriptive words leads to a more varied word choice, watch a teacher-created PowerPoint presentation, and using a Thesaurus replace...
Curated OER
Studies of the Ancient World
Sixth graders, after taking a pretest, write a paragraph describing the difference between Athens and Sparta and write an article about the ancient Phoenicians, describing their contributions to world history. They compare democracy in...
Curated OER
Sum It Up
After a review of the steps involved in writing a summary, class members read The Physics of Baseball by Sarah Ives and use a story web to identify the important details to include in their summary. Class members then choose an article...
Curated OER
Summarizing: James and the Giant Peach
Text marking and a T-chart format to distinguish important information from trivia help elementary readers summarize effectively. Encouraging readers to construct a chapter summary from paragraph-level topic sentences is another sound...
9/11 Memorial & Museum
Exploring Afghani Culture through Literature
Hosseini Khaled's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns are the anchor texts in a semester-long course that explores Afghani culture and traditions.
Curated OER
Budgeting: You Can't Manage What You Don't Know
Students discuss budgets. In this mathematics lesson, students watch an episode of Biz Kid$ about budgeting, participate in a guided group discussion, and create a pamphlet to teach others how to budget their money. Extension activities...
Curated OER
What Can You Do With Money?
Students watch a Biz Kidz video about money, learn what they can do with money, and fill out worksheets on what they learn. Students learn about spending, saving, donating, and investing.
Curated OER
Fame, Fortune, and Philanthropy
With your middle schoolers, develop concepts such as philanthropy, civic responsibility, community service, and common good. Discuss famous philanthropists and what we can each give of our time, talent and treasure to better our...
Curated OER
Summarization Superstars
How do you read when you know you're going to be summarizing a text? Summarize a nonfiction text with your upper elementary schoolers. Your pupils independently read a nonfiction article and write a summary paragraph using the six-step...
Curated OER
The Digestive Dance
Students read food labels to compare healthy verses non healthy food and then use diagrams to create a poster of the digestive system. In this food lesson plan, students move the food down the digestive track along the digestive system.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Kinds of Sentences
Boost understanding of the four types of sentences with several exercises. To start off, read through the provided information about the types of sentences together. This will prepare your class to practice their new knowledge. Then,...
Curated OER
Possessive Pronouns
This instructional activity reviews types of pronouns, provides a list of possessive pronouns, as well as prompts for writing original sentences using 14 different possessive pronouns. Plus, participants put possessive pronouns in their...
Curated OER
Note-Taking to Summary Writing
In this note-taking instructional activity, students review an example of notes for a paragraph and then the summary for those notes. Students then read a new passage, take notes over the passage, and then write a summary for the passage.
Curated OER
Creating A Professional Newsletter
Students orally explain the following desktop terminology: nameplate, pullquote. Students write a paragraph on "How To Insert A Symbol & Special Characters" Students demonstrate how use the format painter button. Students design a...