Learning to Give
Teaching Playwriting in Schools
The world is a stage, and so is your classroom! Hone the skills of the next generation of Tony® award winners with a set of exercises, reference pages, writing prompts, and excerpts from famous plays.
Curated OER
Make a Memory with Movie Maker
There is nothing more exciting than allowing learners to express themselves through a creative medium. In groups, they write narrative stories, focusing on building a strong storyline and dialogue. Next, they transform their stories into...
Curated OER
Strong Descriptive Writing: James and the Giant Peach
Support your writers! Clear procedures and appropriate support make this a superb resource for elementary writing instruction. Ready your class to compose original descriptive paragraphs inspired by the episode in Roald Dahl's James and...
Curated OER
Word Choice in Writing
Sixth graders explore language arts by writing dialogue. For this vocabulary choice lesson, 6th graders identify synonyms and the importance of using a thesaurus while writing dialogue in their own original work. Students revise and edit...
Curated OER
Nellie Bly's Newspaper Club: Introducing the Science of Writing
Learners evaluate a video about Nellie Bly, a famous reporter from the 19th century. They consider what makes a high-interest news article, write an essay in pairs and present it a literary tea.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Is There Art in Nature? What Is The Nature of Art?
It's always great to find cross-curricular lessons, especially when they integrate two very interesting topics. Learners will consider three paintings as they relate to both science and art. They'll discuss each piece and then respond to...
National Gallery of Canada
Picture This!
Introduce your class to Inuit prints and use these artworks as inspiration for a printmaking activity. Pupils make stories to go along with the images and then come up with their own heroic moments to illustrate. They take moments from...
Curated OER
A Multi-Media Approach to Teaching The Grapes of Wrath
Integrate history, math, and art into a study of The Grapes of Wrath with a series of activities that ask learners to investigate the social, political, economic, and environmental factors at play during the 1930s. Designed to be used...
Film English
London
Give your class a tour of London! Before you get started, pupils can brainstorm what they do and do not know about the city and discuss how they think it may have changed over the years. The provided video shows footage from London in...
Curated OER
Crazy Critters Creative Writing
Learners brainstorm animals with unusual characteristics such as a giraffe with a short neck or a zebra without stripes. They write paragraphs about their animals and work in peer editing groups to refine their stories.
Curated OER
Is That a Bird in Your Hat?
Second graders imagine they find an injured bird. They create a clay bird and nest to stimulate creative writing. The lesson includes an integrated week-long art, science, and writing activity.
Curated OER
History in the Making: The Tortilla
Fourth graders examine the history of the tortilla and extend the study across the curriculum. In this history of the tortilla lesson, 4th graders research the background of the tortilla, determine the ingredients, and work with the...
Curated OER
Making Connections: I Know Why Caged Birds Sing
Students discuss equality and fairness by reading a Maya Angelo poem. In this U.S. history lesson, students read the poem I Know Why Caged Birds Sing, and discuss how the era it was written in affected the words. Students...
Curated OER
Reader's Theatre for The Little Red Hen Makes A Pizza
Students participate in reader's theatre. In this compare and contrast lesson plan, students read the book The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza. This lesson plan promotes fluency and expression. Students also read the traditional...
Curated OER
The Water Cycle: Revising the Drafts
Learners explore states of matter by concentrating on the ways in which water moves between its solid, liquid, and gaseous states in a variety of Earth environments familiar to the students. Learners represent these movements in dance.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Songwriting Skill - Finding Your Voice: The Academy Is - “About A Girl”
The seventh in a series of nine exercises focusing on songwriting models for young lyricists on how to find and develop their unique voice. Class members suggest songs that they feel sound authentic and contrast the wording with songs...
Curated OER
Creating Plays from Children's Stories
Students explain how individual elements (e.g., plot, theme, character, conflict, etc.) comprise the structure of a play. They write an original one-act play with developed characters, specific setting, conflict, and resolution.
Curated OER
"All About Me" Paragraph
Fifth graders write a paragraph titled "All About Me" in the computer lab after they have drawn graphic organizers to fill in background information about themselves and used a "10-Point Writing Checklist" to do peer editing.
Curated OER
Indian Music Revision
In this music worksheet, students will complete 11 cloze sentences by using a word list. Then students will find the same words in a word search.
Curated OER
To Live or Die While Protecting the Ones You Love
Upper graders retrieve and verify information on life insurance policies through internet research. They discuss how life insurance policies work and make decisions as to what type of policy is best. They produce a timeline and define...
Curated OER
References to Antiquity in Visual Arts (1848 - 1914)
Examine the Latin and Greek language and civilization during the 19th century by exploring the mediums available then. Students examine scenes related to Greek and Roman literature and compare and contrast them.
Chandler Unified School District
Art Masterpiece—Leonardo da Vinci Inventions
After getting to know the inventor, Leonardo da Vinci and his many inventions, scholars think up their own invention. Following a written description and a hand-drawn picture, learners use a method of mirror writing and antiquing to give...
Curated OER
Reflections and Revisions
Students reflect upon and express affective and cognitive learning experience as a result of a direct service experience. In this service learning lesson, students examine and analyze symbolism portrayed in literature and its...
Curated OER
A Conventional Family
Students explore writing techniques by analyzing their own families. For this family values lesson, students view the film "The Incredibles" in class and discuss the different types of modern-day families. Students write about their...