Curated OER
Pebbles, Sand and Silt -- Categorizing Fiction and Informational Books
Primary readers complete the activities in a Pebbles, Sand and Silt FOSS kit. As a class, they are given a group of rocks and they are to categorize them based on their activities in the FOSS kit. They use this information and apply it...
Curated OER
Excel Lesson
Fifth graders will perform exercises and write the number of each exercise performed on the collection data sheet. They survey eight of their classmates for their exercise data and write that data on the collection data sheet. They then...
Curated OER
Boat Safety and Water Sports, Lesson 2: Personal Flotation Devices
Lesson 2 is part of a twenty-two lesson unit on boat safety and water sports. The focus in this lesson is on personal flotation devices. There are reasons why the law requires PFDs. Click on the resource link at the bottom of the page to...
Curated OER
News Quiz: November 21, 2011
Kids can scan New York Times articles published on November 21, 2011 to answer five multiple choice questions. They'll click on the link to "today's paper" to access the articles and then toggle through each of the five related...
Curated OER
Jimmy Carter: Civic Action, Lesson 1
Inspired by the humanitarian work of President Jimmy Carter after he left office, high schoolers explore the history of civic action in the United States and generate ideas about problems at the local, national, and international levels....
Curated OER
Using Wordless Comics To Help Create Meaning in Reading
Use picture cues as a tool in order to create meaning along with text. With a wordless comic, young illustrators discuss the main idea and character traits, and independently write a summary for a page of a wordless comic. This strategy...
ELA Common Core Lesson Plans
American Romanticism
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" provides the text for an activity that asks readers to select specific passages from the story, identify the aspect of American Romanticism the passage exemplifies, and then provide an...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 11: Setting
Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...
EngageNY
Close Reading of Waiting for the Biblioburro: Finding the Main Message and Taking Notes
Expose your class to Waiting for the Biblioburro, narrative nonfiction that will act as the bridge between ficiton and informational texts to come. Class members do a close reading of the text, looking at excerpts instead of the whole...
EngageNY
Group Discussion: Accessing Books Around the World
Continue work with an informational text by following the procedures detailed here. The plan, part of a series, focuses on My Librarian is a Camel. Class members complete text-dependent questions and then prepare for and participate in a...
ReadWriteThink
Looking for the History in Historical Fiction: An Epidemic for Reading
Combine informational reading skills with fictional text in an innovative historical fiction lessons. After reading a fictional text related to diseases, class members read non-fictional text to gain knowledge about specific infectious...
Scholastic
Marijuana: Breaking Down the Buzz
Teenagers get the real information about marijuana use based on the history of tobacco legislation and research. As they read an educational passage about marijuana laws, science, and changing attitudes, they address their preconceptions...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1
Does your ELA class need some practice with the specific skills outlined in the Common Core standards? Then this is the perfect resource for you! One in a series of connected lessons that cover the standards for reading literature,...
Channel Islands Film
Arlington Springs Man: Lesson Plan 1
Learning to craft quality questions is a skill that can be taught. Class members use the Question Formulation Technique to learn how to create and refine both closed-ended and open-ended questions. They then view West of the West's...
Newspaper Association of America
A Good Read
Teach your readers strategies for breaking down informational texts. Pupils develop and implement the tools they'll need to decode texts for the rest of their lives with an informational resource that focuses on the structure and...
Curated OER
Creating a Newspaper
Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...
Channel Islands Film
Once Upon a Time (Sa Hi Pa Ca): Lesson Plan 3
What was the most significant tool used by the Chumash? How did the environment make the tool possible? What group behaviors allowed the Chumash be be successful for thousands of years? After watching West of the West's documentary Once...
Curated OER
Where is the World is Mrs. Waffenschmidt? #18
Mrs. Waffenschmidt is off again, but where to this time? Use the informational text to uncover her mystery location. Your class will read facts and conclude that she is in the Sahara Desert. This is a good way to make informational text...
Nemours KidsHealth
Obesity: Grades 9-12
High schoolers take on the role of the nation's first Teen Nutrition and Fitness Czars and create tips that can be texted to other teens to remind them about healthy eating and exercising. Groups read articles to gather background...
Scholastic
I Survived Being Bullied
Listen, or read, to a first-hand account of how 15-year old Adama survived being bullied. Scholars gain insight into Adama's experience while reinforcing reading comprehension and vocabulary skills using context clues.
Curated OER
Predicting a Mystery's Solution
Practice making informed predictions. Have your class create a paper fortune-teller and ask questions about the future. They compare the fortune-telling process to the more informed kind of predictions they make while reading. They...
Minnesota Literacy Council
Scientific Method
Here is a resource with a descriptive approach to explaining the scientific method. It's simple, but effective for both introduction and reinforcement of this concept.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Reading Primary Sources: Darwin and Wallace
Take your classes back in time. Learners read real historical texts from both Darwin and Wallace as well as an announcement of their findings. Using guiding questions, they make inferences and draw conclusions from the information in the...
Curated OER
Comparing Kwakiutl, Cheyenne and Navajo tribes
Third graders study the difference between the Kwakiutl, Cheyenne and Navajo tribes. They identify the people, resources, lifestyle and beliefs of the Kwakiutl, Cheyenne, and Navajo Indians. Afterward, they present their projects on each...