Curated OER
What Do Your Feelings Weigh?
Love this instructional activity! Learners fill cans with slips of paper to identify positive and negative feelings. They connect negative feelings to weight, and discuss how negativity can get you down. What a wonderfully visual way for...
Curated OER
How Caves Are Formed
Students explore caves. In this cave formation lesson, students take a virtual tour of a cave and then participate in a scientific investigation that requires them to grow crystals and chart data regarding their growth.
Curated OER
Quoting, Citing, and Paraphrasing
Beware! (not only the Ides of March). Warn your researchers of the dangers of plagiarism! After defining the term, viewers are introduced to the consequences of and forms of plagiarism, as well as tips on how to avoid plagiarism....
Institute for Systems Biology
Introduction to Saline Environments & Microbial Halophiles
If you do not mind wading through unrelated headings (This is not for a physics or STEM course, as it states.) and content (The activity opens with an article about neurology, not halophiles.), then you will find a valuable resource on...
Curated OER
How to Write A+ Essays!
This lesson, which promises to improve the essays of your middle schoolers, contains a list of characteristics an essay should include. It breaks it down into the introduction, thesis statement, body, etc. There's also a list of things...
Curated OER
Giant Museum
Scholars make a giant scale model of an object. They will take a regular item and enlarge it to five times its length and width. They attempt this same concepts with a 3D model.
Curated OER
Getting In Is Half the Battle
Students read and discuss "Defending Affirmative Action With Social Science," examining the admissions policies in public universities and colleges. They write persuasive essays either for or against the admissions policies in their state.
Curated OER
From There To Here...
Students find out where some of the products in hour homes come from, then become aware of our local trash, landfills and incinerators. They chart and graph data and use maps for different purposes.
Curated OER
This is My Neighborhood
Students predict the things that they may see, smell, or hear in their neighborhood. They take part in a neighborhood walk, creating a rough map of their neighborhood as they go. Upon return to the classroom, students create a final map...
Curated OER
Disperse or Decrease
Students explore the dispersal of animals.. Students take on the role of a specific animal. They simulate finding a new home due to overpopulation. Through hands-on activities performed during the simulation, students discover the area...
Curated OER
Understanding Fantasy
Explore fantasy as a genre. After working in small groups to identify literary elements in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, class members share their work and then use the presentations to help them prepare to write...
Curated OER
Getting Into Shapes: Identifying and Describing Two-Dimensional Shapes
Young scholars examine their classroom to find examples of various types of shapes. After identifying and describing the various shapes, they draw as many as they can on a piece of paper. They organize them into an image based on their...
Curated OER
Dominos As Fractions
Students investigate the concept of using fractions in a variety of different contexts. They participate in a hands on activity in the stead of book work. The goal is to get them acquainted with the use of fractions using mental math...
Curated OER
Good Book, Bad Book: Lesson 2
An interesting way to incorporate pop culture and the elements that make a book good. Kids watch a clip from MTV Cribs, they discuss how good or bad books are similar to good or bad homes. They are all different and not everybody will...
Curated OER
Identify and Discuss the Author's Purpose
Examine author's purpose in a persuasive text using this scaffolded plan. You essentially have a verbatim script here, but it can definitely be used as an outline instead. Review questions that readers should ask themselves when...
Learning to Give
Start Cleaning the Air
Advocate for the environment! With the short story included, learners are prompted to think about radon (the odorless and colorless gas) and possible ways to get donations or raise money to purchase detection equipment. The plan spans...
Acoustical Society of America
Anatomy of a Wave
Pair physical science learners up, and have one describe a transverse wave while the other blindly attempts to draw it. Then reveal an actual diagram and explain the different parts of the wave: crest, trough, wavelength. Though most of...
Bright Hub Education
Find Future Employment Ideas by Writing a Career Essay
Use the constructive ideas in this resource to assist in developing your own career writing project for your junior high or young high school scholars. The resource provides step-by-step plans for the educator and learners, as well...
Curated OER
A Living Alphabet
Fifth graders pose to create the uppercase letters of the alphabet for digital photos. They use the photos and iPhoto to create an alphabet book with text.
Curated OER
A Living Alphabet
Students have a greater familiarity with the letters of the alphabet and use letters for other alphabet projects..
Curated OER
Using Each Trait to Improve Student Writing
Students examine examples of the qualities of good writing skills and discuss how each of the traits add to the process of good writing. A variety of excerpts from literature provide samples for the exploration.
Curated OER
Aches and Pains
Being able to distinguish between short and long vowel /a/ sounds is an important skill for young readers. They are introduced to the vowel-consonant-e pattern that changes short vowel sounds into long vowel sounds. They practice reading...
Curated OER
Orienteering - Lesson 7 - Compasses
More compass practice! This activity has your scholars practicing getting their bearings. They will participate in a schoolyard compass game where they will have a specific starting point and then navigate through the course according to...
Curated OER
"Re-Solutioning": Practice Brings Out Our Best
Seventh graders write scripts for scenarios to be "re-solutioned". One re-solution scenario will be role played for whole class. They also identify what personal responsibility means and who is responsible in taking personal...