Curated OER
Creation of An Educational Toy, Game, or Story
Seventh graders create a toy, game or story suitable for a young child. They research magazines, catalogs, and child development texts for ideas. Students consider the age and development of the child.
Curated OER
Playing With Science
Young scientists investigate the scientific concepts and principles that help make common toys such as hula hoops, yo-yos, slinkies, and silly putty work. As a class, they read "Backyard Rocket Science, Served Wet" to get a look behind...
Curated OER
Play With a Purpose
Students consider toys as more than items for playing, compare and contrast inventors and toys they created, and discuss purpose of specific toys, including whether toy was created for education, financial success, or both.
Perkins School for the Blind
Capture the Treasure
Did you ever play capture the flag? I did, and it was so much fun! Your learners with special needs, physical handicaps, or visual impairments can play a classic and highly engaging game with a few minor adaptations. The best part is,...
Perkins School for the Blind
Beanbag Toss
Why is learning how to catch and toss so important? If one has visual impairments, learning this basic skill will help him increase orientation and mobility, coordination, and cognitive development,. Mastery of this skill will also mean...
Curated OER
Playing in Lesotho
Students learn about another culture. In this cultural awareness lesson, students learn about the location of the kingdom of Lesotho in southern Africa, discuss the toys used in Lesotho to those used in the United States and draw a...
Curated OER
Energy Transformation with Balance Toys
Students explore and identify the concepts of potential and kinetic energy. They define kinetic and potential energy and discuss examples of each. Students then play a game involving balance toys, demonstrating both kinetic and potential...
Curated OER
Energy At Play
If you can find Tinker Toys™, then this may be a fun assignment for your physical science class. Using the construction set and a few other toys, they examine the forces involved when it they are being played with. For each, they...
KOG Ranger Program
Matches, Lighters, and Kids Do Not Go Together!
Do your part to prevent forest fires with an activity about not playing with matches. A word search prompts young rangers to fill in the blanks about the consequences of playing with matches, and a set of pictures provides spaces for...
Curated OER
The Physics of Toys
Students explore physics by experimenting with classic toys. In this physical science lesson, students utilize gliders, energy balls, bouncing balls, marbles and other toys to explore how they work. Students explore each toy at a work...
Curated OER
Techno Toys for Trendy Tots
Students reflect on their favorite childhood toys and assess their continued appeal. They work in pairs to redesign classic toys and create posters to represent their new models.
Curated OER
Build It With Lincoln Logs!
Students use primary sources to analyze advertisements, prices, and styles of Lincoln Logs from Carson Pirie Scott catalogs from 1952 to 1960. Students then compare modern-day toy to Lincoln Logs of the 1950s by analyzing differences in...
Curated OER
Children's Playthings And Books
Students categorize studenT toys by intelligence types. They review toy safety and function and identify the appropriate play age of various toys. They read and evaluate studenT books and write one of their own.
Curated OER
Activities with 3-D shapes.
In this 3D shapes learning exercise, students describe faces, feel shapes in a bag, use play dough to make shapes, and more. Students complete 8 activities.
Curated OER
Games Children Play: Then and Now
Second graders examine primary documents to discover similarities and differences in life today and life before. In this toys then and now lesson plan, 2nd graders complete a graphic organizer to show how things have changed or stayed...
US Institute of Peace
Mediating Conflict
Two's a negotiation, but three's a mediation! Demonstrate the differences between the two processes through a role-playing lesson. The activity familiarizes pupils with the role of a mediator and examines the types of situations that...
Flag House
Play Well with Others…Be Active Against Bullying!
Bully-free is the way every school should be! How can you help create that kind of culture in your school? A well-written teacher's guide containing lessons for grades 6-8 may be just the ticket. Each unit, separated by grade level,...
Curated OER
Toy Selection and Safety
High schoolers investigate the role toys play in child development, to become more aware of what toys to select, and the safety features in toys.
Curated OER
Sand & Water: Arctic in the Sun
Students chill out on a hot day with this outdoor activity. In this early childhood physical education lesson, students have fun experimenting through play with ice and toy animals in water.
Pacific Science Center
Worlds in Comparison
Young astronomers follow a step-by-step procedure for dividing a lump of dough into parts, resulting in a scaled volume set of puny planets. Along with the printable directions is a template chart of planet names on which learners can...
Curated OER
Balancing The Day Away In Grade 2
Second graders sped the day exploring about balance by playing with and making balancing toys. They discover how varying the amount and position of mass affects the toys' balance. Pupils explore gravity and balance while playing with the...
Perkins School for the Blind
Taking Turns
For small children or learners with disabilities, learning to wait patiently and taking turns is very important. In pairs, two children with visual impairments take turns asking for, waiting for, and playing with a musical toy. Each turn...
Intel
Fair Games
Who said things were fair? The unit introduces probability and its connection to fairness. The class interacts with activities of chance and plays games to relate them to fairness. Groups design a fair game and develop a presentation....
Chicago Botanic Garden
Carbon, Greenhouse Gases, and Climate
Climate models mathematically represent the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land, sun, surface, and ice. Part two in the series of four lessons looks at the role greenhouse gases play in keeping Earth warm and has participants...