Curated OER
What Plants Need in Order to Survive and Grow: Light
Students conduct an experiment to evaluate whether plants need light to survive and grow. They observe and gather data about plant responses to different growth regimes, analyze the data, and make conclusions about basic plant needs.
Curated OER
Farming in Space
Students research, design, and run plant growth experiments online. They explore websites, design an experiment using an animation-based building block program, construct a soda bottle hydroponic production unit and a cardboard plant...
Curated OER
Bronze Bow
Explore ancient Rome through reading The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare. Readers activate prior knowledge by examining objects that relate to the story and predict the significance of the items. Their curiosity is aroused through...
Curated OER
The Outsiders: Anticipation Guide
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is always a favorite for middle and high school readers because it addresses issues that hit home to them, decades after the book is set. Have learners fill out an anticipation guide that encourages them to...
Curated OER
Writing to a Specific Topic
After a class discussion where learners make predictions about what will happen in a book based on its cover illustration, pupils are asked to compose a written response about an aspect of the story and include some of their own...
Curated OER
The Gummywolf
Students read a story about "Gummywolf," stopping periodically to answer questions about the progression of the story. Next, they create a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast "Gummywolf" to "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Students...
Curated OER
Reciprocal Teaching Strategies Worksheet
In this pre-reading activity activity, students respond to 3 questions that require them to list main ideas, generate questions, and clarify unclear items prior to reading a selection.
Curated OER
Salute to Heroes
What is a hero? Used as both an introduction and conclusion to the play Into the Line of Duty (author not provided), this presentation details the definitions of a hero before posing discussion questions. Students discuss their ideas...
Curated OER
A Midsummer Night's Dream
You might not be able to put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes but you can generate interest in A Midsummer’s Night Dream in that length of time. As an introduction to Shakespeare’s comedy, pairs of students assume the roles of...
Curated OER
Just Like the Old Days
Students examine customs of rural Mongolia. They read and discuss a letter, discuss families, locate Mongolia on a map, reenact scenes from the letter, and write a prediction of how life change in rural Mongolia during the next 50 years.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Are You a Square or a Rectangle?
Discover the difference between standard and non-standard units of measure with your class. They differentiate between rectangles and squares, read a book, measure a peer's height. They then discuss measurement methods, make...
Curated OER
Become a Detective
Learners participate in a simulation where they act as detectives to locate a missing item using questioning and prediction techniques. Then they read a portion of a story, write a prediciton paragraph, and then finish reading the story.
Curated OER
Can you Top That?
Students make connections between their own experiences and the story, "get" the author's message and be able to discuss it with other readers, and apply their reading skills and strategies. They predict what happens in the story,...
Curated OER
Cleaning Day
Students read "Cleaning Day" by D. H. Figueredo. They predict what they would expect to see the father and child on the cover of the book doing, confirm their predictions after reading the story, and reflect on the relationship between...
Curated OER
Cliffhangers
Fourth graders identify the cliffhanger at the end of chapter 3 of Marvin and the Meanest Girl and predict what will happen next. In this cliffhanger lesson plan, 4th graders finish reading the book once they have made their predictions.
Curated OER
Create a Computer Story
Second graders will create their own story and read it aloud. In this literacy/technology lesson, 2nd graders use computer software to create their own story, which is read back to them while they write it. Afterward, the student should...
Curated OER
Reading Predictions
Second graders read and predict content and purpose for table of contents, index, headings, captions, illustrations, and major words from their science or social studies textbooks. They use books' elements to summarize what they can find...
Curated OER
Predictions, Predictions, and More Predictions
Third graders pose questions about the subject of a short story based on the title and cover illustration; then read the story and determine if their questions actually pertained to the story line, and, if so, how the story answered the...
Curated OER
Making Good Decisions
Students practice the skill of reasoned decision making. In this making decisions lesson plan, students read from the website 'Little Planet Times' and use the 'Making Good Decisions' E-Sheet to help with the article. Students divide...
Curated OER
Oral Assessment Plan
Learners practice active listening skills. In this literacy and U.S. history lesson, students predict the hardships pioneers using the Mormon Trail might have faced. Learners view the movie "Children of the Wagon Train," then confirm or...
Curated OER
Heat Loss and Cool Gains
Fifth graders predict what happens when cold and hot water are mixed together. In this physics lesson, 5th graders discuss how heat transfer takes place. They record temperature readings and compare it with their prediction.
UAF Geophysical Institute
Carbon Footprint
Your young environmentalists can calculate their carbon footprint and discuss ways to reduce it with a worksheet about climate change. After reading a handout about what impact one's carbon footprint can have on the environment, kids...
Polar Trec
Down to the Deep Virtual Lab
At a depth of 3,000 m in the ocean, the pressure is 300 times that at sea level! In the activity, individuals predict what will happen to Styrofoam cups submerged 3,000 meters into the ocean. They then convert these units to soccer...
PBS
Stories of Painkiller Addiction: Contemplating Nature vs. Nurture
Does having an addict in your family make it more likely to become one yourself? Explore the genetic risk factors, as well as the prominent environmental influences, for substance addiction in a lesson that encourages awareness and open...