Curated OER
Getway to More Descriptive Writing
Students use more precise descriptive words in their writing.
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Class President
Fourth graders develop vocabulary to aid in comprehension as they read the novel, Class President.
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First Class Mail
Students read The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and write a friendly letter to Elizabeth George Speare, the author, discussing their points of interest in the novel with her.
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Learning New Words
Middle schoolers, working in groups, make as many words as possible in a given time, using flash cards that contain prefixes, words, and definitions. They chose group roles and participate in a numbers of time rounds of this activities.
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Begining Reading: Antonyms
Pupils create and play a game called Antonym Match-up. They create twenty cards with ten pairs of antonyms. In pairs, They mix up the cards and compete to see who can match all of the pairs the fastest. A video segment from the...
Curated OER
Five Paragraph Essay
Eighth graders are introduced to the mechanics of writing a standard-form essay. They draft, edit and polish a five-paragraph essay about spending the day as an animal of their choice.
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Publishing a Group Book
Students examine various alphabet books. They write several sentences for their assigned letter of the alphabet, type them onto a word processing program, and create an illustration for a class alphabet book.
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Color My World Grey and Blue
Can colors help to convey a mood in writing? Explore this question with your class using the songs "Grey Street" by the Dave Matthews Band and "Blu is a Mood" by Blu Cantrell. After analyzing the effect of the color words in these songs...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment: Text-Dependent and Short Answer Questions: Excerpts from “A Limited Supply”
There's no such thing as an unlimited resource. Scholars complete a mid-unit assessment by reading A Limited
Supply. They answer text-dependent questions and complete a graphic organizer about key terms in the text.
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The ABC's of the Three Little Pigs
Writers use varied sentence patterns. They listen to the story of Cinderella rewritten so that each sentence starts with the next letter of the alphabet. They create their own version of The Three Little Pigs using the same concept.
Virginia Department of Education
The Writing Process for Persuasive Writing
Get your junior high writers stimulated with the strategies and ideas available in this activity. Learners discuss and debate controversial subjects, and outline their reasons with an online graphic organizer (link included) that creates...
Curated OER
Which One Doesn't Belong?
Third graders identify words that are related with 80% accuracy. Given a list of four vocabulary words, 3rd graders identify specific relationships between three of the four words. They also identify which of the four words are not...
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Look It Up!
Sixth graders improve their writing skills by finding, defining, and correctly using new and interesting vocabulary words. Groups of students work together to find, define, and use in sentences ten words with which they are all unfamiliar.
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Yes, No, Maybe So!
Learners view various pictures and identify those that show action verbs. They write sentences to summarize the actions shown in the pictures.
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The Class Garden Essay
Fifth graders use a class garden as inspiration for a specific writing assignment. They conduct research into different types of flowers in photo images taken with a digital camera. Students write a creative essay and draw a picture to...
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Help! I Need Some Editing
Pupils write their own story using as much descriptive language as they can. They peer edit each other's stories and create illustrations to accompany their writings. They place their story in a booklet and give it to a needy recepient.
Curated OER
Euro English
Eighth graders read a short essay and cull out the directions. Then students rewrite the essay using standard English spellings. They create a paragraph of their own using Euro English and ask fellow students to translate to standard...
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Animalopedia Poetry
Students reseach animals while working in groups. They write poems to be included in a class Animalopedia book.
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A Study of Japan with the Haiku of Basho
Sixth graders explore haiku poetry and the works of the Japanese poet Basho. They review characteristics of haiku poetry and other forms of poetry. After they write three or more haiku poems, they illustrate one of them and share with...
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What is Your Story?
Students listen to Picnic In October and Memory Coat to explore the concept of memoirs. They interview a family member and write a personal memoir that reflects their own family history.
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Design a Soda Bottle Label
Students make a mind web to describe their favorite soda. They then make thumbnail sketches of their labels. Tehy create a unique font with which to write the mane of their soda.
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Richie's Rocket
Fourth graders, after reading with intonation and expression the book, "Richie's Rocket," by Joan Anderson, circulate in centers to create a puzzle with emotions and experiences from the ideas in the story, write the definition of words...
Curated OER
How to Express Actions
Students use online resources to practice and master the use of the most commonly used Spanish verbs in the infinitive form. They develop an understanding of how verbs work, and follow a set of patterns to conjugate them.
Curated OER
A Heritage Study: Using Information Resources to Research Family History and Traditions
Learners research their family history through ethnographical study. They locate information through a variety of sources, interview people, write a report and present an oral presentation to the class.