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I Spy Poetry
Students identify and interpret the rhythm and form of the I Spy poem.
They then integrate art, music, literature, technology, and writing with poetry. Students also write their own poem based on the picture they printed from the I Spy...
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Journalism 101
Students understand the writing style in a newspaper. In this journalism lesson, students recognize that a newspaper has a catchy headline and objective writing. Students interview someone in an area of interest and write a news article.
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Jazz it Up!
Students research the history and contributions of Jazz in their local environments. They then design and create a wide variety of presentations to share with the class using as many mediums as possible.
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What's New?
Students act as teams of product managers for personal electronics companies. Each team evaluate new electronic devices in different product categories (such as handheld devices and portable music devices), and create product...
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2002: The Year In Review
Students research and create a book highlighting significant events and trends throughout the world in the year 2002. Then, through creative writing, they respond to the events or trends themselves and how they affected our world.
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The Tabloid Ballad
High schoolers explore the poetic ballad. They examine the rhythm of a typical ballad and listen to recitations of sample ballads. They choose an article from a supermarket tabloid and write a comical ballad using rhythms and...
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Teams in the Field
Students conduct team interviews outside the classroom, either within the school or beyond, as part of a fieldwork project. They use reasoning skills as they formulate questions, plan, predict, hypothesize, and speculate about the...
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What is Timbre?
Students analyze the differences in similar songs. In this music appreciation lesson, students discover the meaning of timbre and how it can drastically change similar pieces of music. Students sing two pieces of music with...
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The Story of an Old Piano
Students read excerpts from The Story of an Old Piano. They choose a personal object and write paragraphs from the object's point of view. Their stories can be bound for the class library.
National First Ladies' Library
We're off to see the Wizard!
Students explore the process of play and movie making from books. They study the basic elements of drama and write and produce a play based on a chosen theme. Students explain the basic elements of a play by looking at "The Wonderful...
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Que Llueva! It's Raining, It's Pouring!
Students learn to sing a song in another language. In this music instructional activity, students learn a song about rain in English and Spanish. Students listen to the song Que Llueva in Spanish and It's Raining, It's...
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Violence On TV
Learners examine violence on TV. In this data collection lesson, students explore TV violence. Learners watch TV shows and fill out a checklist about the amount of violence. Students organize and analyze the information to make a...
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Strong Verb Image Makers
Learners use description language to clarify ideas and create vivid images in an essay focusing of strong verbs. They discuss weak verbs and explore that the better image the words create, the better the reader understands the text.
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The Mozart Effect
Students develop a concept of why skepticism is important in science by looking at actual scientific studies regarding the effect of playing Mozart's music to infants. They record a journal of their inner thoughts and feelings while...
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Introduction to Poetry Part I-- The Three Pillars of Poetry
In these poetry writing worksheets, learners learn the power of words and the ability of the poet to say a great deal with a few well-chosen words. Students learn the 3 pillars of poetry: Emotion (makes you feel something), Image (makes...
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It's All Part of the Story
Students explore storytelling through pantomime, improvisation, and dramatization. They watch an online video, discuss Native American earth stories, role-play various situations, explore websites, and present an oral story to the class.
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Using Effective, Evocative Writing as a Model
Students analyze the author's style to learn techniques for strengthening their own writing. They re-read "Music in the Fields" and highlight images that create vivid pictures in their minds-places where Young "shows, not tells" and...
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iRock
Learners explore, listen to and analyze songs that helped define rock and roll music. They read and discuss the article, "They're All Oldies, Dad Included." Research on contemporary artists is conducted and then the students choose who...
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Developing Story Ideas
Students complete activities to learn how to develop story ideas in journalistic writing. In this story ideas lesson, students learn news value judging criteria, identify language to ask beat sources for story ideas, distinguish story...
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Oceans: A Sensory Haiku
Students create an ocean haiku. In this haiku instructional activity, students use their five senses to write a haiku. Students watch videos about the ocean, make a sensory portrait, and create a class haiku.
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Sounding out accuracy, Mix, Mix, Match
Students explore English by identifying segments of words in class. In this phonetics activity, students utilize flash cards which contain letters and mix them in order to create a "match" word. Students sound out the words they...
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Acting Up
Students, in groups, study a Tony Award winner from the past through researching its history, watching the production, and reading the written origin of the production. They create programs for these productions and assess
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Kalahari Explorations
Students research the area of the Kalahari Desert. They use the online and print resources and evaluate the information they find. They present their information to the class.
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Activity Plan Mixed Ages: Do the Animal Dance!
Learners create a dance based on animal movements. In this kinesthetic lesson plan, the students will read and imitate animals in a creative way and share their dances with the group. The lesson includes a take-home activity and a math...