Curated OER
Get Out, Get Active: Three Social Studies Activities Your Students Will Love
Three recommendations to help keep your students engaged via outdoors social studies activities.
Indian Land Tenure Foundation
More Tribal Homelands
Here is a very fun idea that introduces young learners to how geographical location affects cultural development. They are introduced to four areas where Native Americans have lived in the past by reading stories and examining images....
National Park Service
The Young Naturalist
Beginning with a brief history of our 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, then followed by a discussion of his interest in nature, young scientists take to the outdoors to locate and observe local plants and insects....
Curated OER
Activity Plan Mixed Ages: Community Cooperation
Students learn how members of communities work together. In this early childhood lesson plan, students explore their neighborhood and discover the people and places that comprise it.
Curated OER
Fall Lesson Plans
Students participate in various fall activities. For this fall lesson, students take a trip to a farmers market and purchase the ingredients needed for vegetable soup. Students paint fall scenes and create a fall story. Students discuss...
Curated OER
Outdoor Survival
Students are introduced to basic outdoor survival concepts. They identify the seven basic needs for survival. Students describe the symptoms and treatment for frostbite and hypothermia. They compare and contrast the value of different...
Curated OER
Boxes & Blocks: Puffer Bellies and Box Cars
Students turn cardboard boxes into outdoor dramatic play. In this early childhood visual arts lesson, students explore cooperative and dramatic play outdoors by challenging children to create a train from cardboard boxes.
Curated OER
Photo Scavenger Hunt
Students celebrate Earth Day by applying what they've learned about studying the natural world. In this Photo Scavenger Hunt lesson plan, students use a digital camera to capture outdoor imagery and to help them understand the...
Curated OER
Hello Summer
Students celebrate the great outdoors and the coming summer break by studying the natural world. In this seasons lesson, students engage in bark rubbing and operate a digital camera to capture outdoor imagery for a collage to help them...
Curated OER
Close to Home
Fourth graders examine habitats for animals by creating their own in class environment. For this environment lesson, 4th graders research the Internet for information on certain wild animals and the places in which they live....
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What Tree is That?
Students examine leaves and the trees in their neighborhood that they came from. In this ecology lesson, students read the book, I Can Name 50 Trees Today, and discuss how a tree goes from a forest to a wood shop. Students...
Scientific American
Life-Sized Drawing
Ocean explorers or mathematicians research the wreck of the CSS H.L. Hunley. They investigate the actual dimensions of the Hunley using math and measuring skills. Afterward, they sketch a large scale drawing of the submarine outdoors on...
Curated OER
Navajo Pottery: Beautiful Objects
Young potters make their very own version of the classic Navajo Pottery. With helpful worksheets and applicable cross-curricular activities, the instructional activity is an enriching way to mold both your clay and the...
Curated OER
Effigy Mound Activity
Students research effigy mounds of Native people in Wisconsin. They create large models of effigy mounds in a given area based on factual information from their studies and research.
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Home Design
Young scholars investigate house structures by examining photographs. In this architecture lesson, students read the book Houses and Homes, analyzing the different structures and materials. Young scholars utilize mud to...
Curated OER
Sand & Water: Shape Search
Learners act as amateur archaeologists as they participate in their own "dig" to explore and record unusual shapes. In this shape exploration lesson, students use trowels and shovels to dig, and learn to sift the dirt with screens to...
Curated OER
I Got a Lava Livin' to Do in Pompeii
Scholars imagine themselves as citizens of Pompeii in 79 AD. First they are assigned a job (or place in society like a child or slave). Then they record their daily activities for the weeks leading up to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in...
Curated OER
Why Are Thinning Trees Important?
Students investigate thinning trees and why they are important to the forest. In this sustainable environment instructional activity, students role-play as if they are trees in the forest and simulate the overcrowding and inability...
Arizona Cooperative Extension
Geocaching
Using GPS units, small groups participate in a scavenger hunt to find an object that you have hidden. They use coordinates for stopping points along a pre-planned path to get to the final cache. This is a terrific activity to include in...
Aspen Institute
The Voice That Challenged a Nation
Included here are step-by-step instructions for conducting a close reading of The Voice That Challenged a Nation by Russell Freedman. After an individual and class reading, class members read carefully through the text excerpt,...
Curated OER
Celebrate Saint Partick's Day in The Langauage Arts Classroom
Ideas and activities to engage learners in the history and culture of St. Patrick's Day.
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Louisiana Crafts and Domestic Arts
Discuss with the class the reasons for identifying and defining the term material culture as refering to a vast array of objects and activities that people make and do traditionally. Your class can identify diverse crafts and decorative...
Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation
Greenhouse Gas Game
You will need to gather a number of tokens, bags, and other various game components in order to incorporate this activity into your curriculum. Different tokens represent carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Printable 8.5"x11"...
Curated OER
The Artifact Problem
Students work in small groups and make a map of a familiar room. In this artifact lesson plan, students decide on a suitable scale for their maps, the tools they will use and how they will make it and decide on strategies they would use...