Curated OER
Looking at Portraits: Literary Monuments
Examine artwork, research literature, and create art pieces for a monument to a literary figure. Young scholars analyze the sculpture Model for a Monument to Alexandre Dumas père and compare it to other well-known monuments. They...
Curated OER
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
Read an article about the migration of our ancestors and write a paragraph. Pupils paraphrase and summarize to restate the information found in a nonfiction text. They write a shortened version of the reading to demonstrate the...
Curated OER
Reintroduce: Main Idea
What would a main idea be without important details? Readers use a graphic organizer to record key details from an informational text (a fiction text would also work). Review main idea as a concept before beginning, asking scholars to...
EngageNY
Word Problems Leading to Rational Equations
Show learners how to apply rational equations to the real world. Learners solve problems such as those involving averages and dilution. They write equations to model the situation and then solve them to answer the question — great...
Curated OER
Be the Poet
Students work through a Haiku Organizer to determine the characteristics they use to write eight haiku poems on a theme that they choose. They design presentation folders of their completed work.
Curated OER
I Am An Author
Analyze and interpret a literary work your class has read during the course. After reading a variety of literary works, middle schoolers alter the ending of a selection by creating an alternate ending. They generate five comprehension...
Curated OER
Relatives
Primary learners read the text The Relatives Came and make text to self-connections. In this literature discussion, they discuss what the text reminds them of in their own lives. They can also write down their connections and share them.
Curated OER
Base Words and Prefixes
Once your second graders grasp base words and prefixes, challenge them with this visual word meaning activity. They watch you model it before engaging in guided practice. Use these word cards focused on the prefix re to help your...
Curated OER
Build Mastery: Visualization
What do you see? Young reader tap into the visualization process as they listen to or read a fiction story and fill out a graphic organizer. Model this first with a think-aloud, showing scholars how you visualize a familiar story. For...
Curated OER
Build Mastery: Prediction
What do you think will happen? Use a graphic organizer to help learners predict what will happen in a text. Consider modeling the chart using a familiar story, pretending you don't know what happens. Show scholars the book, explaining...
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: I Am Planet Earth (Marzollo)
Explore the world's beauty with Jean Marzollo's colorful book I Am Planet Earth, the context of a vocabulary study focused on the following in-text words: globe, jungle, paddy, planet, and valley. Discuss the text briefly and introduce...
Curated OER
Unit 2: Global to Local: Understanding My Place in the Hydrosphere
What does the ground around your home have to do with water pollution? Young ecologists learn about their local watershed and create their own cause-and-effect models of the hydrosphere.
EngageNY
Analyzing the Purpose of a Newspaper Article
Shh! No talking during the discussion! Using the resource, scholars engage in a silent discussion called a Chalk Talk activity to analyze the purpose of a newspaper article. Additionally, they read a model newspaper article and try to...
Virginia Department of Education
Developing a Research Strategy - Define Your Topic
Your budding scholars spent the day in the library looking for a topic for their research essay, and now they are all in tears because there is too much information available on their topics. Wipe those tears away with the ideas and...
Scholastic
Digraph sh
Shhhh! Listen up to learn about the sh digraph. With the materials provided here, kids will have the opportunity to hear, say, write, and read this particular digraph many times.
Achieve3000
Figurative Language
Similes and metaphors make writing more beautiful and detailed, but can be a little harder to decipher during a first reading. Use a passage from The Man Who Loved Words to show young readers how to think through passages that contain...
Curated OER
Noncombatancy and the Seventh day Adventist Church
Upper graders investigate how the Seventh Day Adventists are objectors to the practice of war. The lesson covers the Civil War and examines the church's position about the practice of war. The research extends to modern wars and learners...
Curated OER
Carl Sandburg's "Chicago": Bringing a Great City Alive
Carl Sandburg composed poetry that conveyed a time and place in American Literature and history. Learners identify the literary techniques he uses to describe the historical and cultural context of living in Chicago. They define the...
Curated OER
Fact Families Lessons
Have you ever tried using arrays to help you teach the fact families that go with multiplication and division? If not, you should read this article! Some excellent and easy-to-implement ideas are presented, along with some good lessons...
Gwinnett County Public Schools
Analysis of the Tuck Everlasting and The Birchbark House Text Exemplars
Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...
West Contra Costa Unified School District
Decimals and Fractions
Reinforce the concept of fractions and decimals as part of a whole with a lesson plan that begins with a mixed review, then goes into a three problem guided practice, and ends with a collaborative activity. The guided practice and...
Curated OER
On the Cutting Edge
Introduce the background of design and designers and their role in communicating their thoughts to others. In groups, you can assign participation in a writing cluster on various designers and write paragraphs to submit to magazines. To...
Scholastic
Outlining Main Ideas and Details
Practice outlining and evaluating expository writing in this lesson. After discussing main ideas and seeing examples, young writers go through a sample outline and discuss the way to properly format a piece of writing. They then create...
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride (Priceman)
What a fun way to explore new vocabulary words! Marjorie Priceman's book Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride offers plenty of new words for scholars to learn in context: amateur, assembled, demonstration,...