Curated OER
Forming Plural Nouns
Everyone knows that a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea - but what happens when you have people, places, things, or ideas? Use this SMART board activity to guide your class through plural nouns. Several activities, including making...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Alexander Graham Bell
Study the features of nonfiction text with a set of comprehension and analysis materials. Readers learn about Alexander Graham Bell with questions about the text, writing prompts, and proofreading activities.
Advocates for Human Rights
Who are Immigrants?
What do Jerry Yang, Patrick Ewing, John Muir, Charlize Theron, Peter Jennings, and Saint Frances X Cabrini all have in common? They are all immigrants to the United States. Famous and not-so-famous immigrants are the focus of a resource...
Advocates for Human Rights
Creating a Welcoming School and Community
The final activity in a unit study of immigration and human rights asks class members to design a project for their school that builds support for immigrant classmates. To prepare for this project, individuals use what they have learned...
Desert Discoveries
Built for the Desert
The saguaro cactus has an amazing ability to survive in a harsh environment. Learners identify the many adaptations for desert life that the saguaro employs. They look at each part of the saguaro and determine what role it plays in the...
Curated OER
Can a Mouse Lift an Elephant?
Read Just a Little Bit, by Ann Tompert as an introduction to levers. Discuss playground seesaws and then turn learners loose to experiment with the placement of a fulcrum. Their goal is to determine where to place it in order to lift ten...
Curated OER
Promises, Promises
If someone breaks a promise, is that person no longer trustworthy? Present your 6th and 7th graders with a series of statements and have them debate their opinions with supporting evidence. As an extension, have your students write a...
Curated OER
A'planting We will Go
Germination is an amazing process that results in amazing things. The book The Tiny Seed is the inspiration for a set of activities that will help build early literacy, observation, language, and writing skills. The class observes how...
PHET
Learning about Space Weather
Is the sun the only celestial body with magnetic fields? A guided discussion on the weather in space is designed with a mix of questions, discussions, explanations, and applications. Additionally, the resouce includes an...
The Holler
Conflict Resolution
Does your class understand the importance of peaceful conflict resolution? Middle schoolers share conflict stories, then collaborate to resolve simulated conflicts during an engaging lesson. The teacher's guide contains implementation...
Curated OER
Cuentos
Students revise Spanish mystery stories. They sequence the events from a group's mystery story and suggest revisions for the setting. They revise their stories using the suggestions from classmates and describe characters in folktales....
Curated OER
Story Writing
Second graders review the basic elements of a story. Individually, they write their own original story as they use a software program to help them map out their ideas. With a partner, they exchange papers and read them for grammatical...
Curated OER
Minnie and Moo and the Thanksgiving Tree
Third graders practice retelling stories. They read a story and work with a partner to discuss the key elements: characters, setting, events, beginning, and end. They assess one another as they retell the story. They rewrite the story in...
Curated OER
The Mysterious Tadpole
Second graders examine books written by Steven Kellogg, looking for similarities in his illustrations. They also look at images found on the Internet. They listen to a read aloud of The Mysterious Tadpole up to the point where the eggs...
Curated OER
Suddenly!
Third graders explore the text "Suddenly." They create a new version of the story using the predictable patterns from the original story. Students share their stories with the rest of the class.
Curated OER
Lawton: A Child of the Prairie
Students complete word study activities, read a story and write a descriptive paragraph about the setting of Goo Goo Avenue in Lawton 1901.
Curated OER
Multicultural Fairy Tales
Third graders explore the elements of a story using fairy tales from all over the world. They compare and contrast story elements, key ideas and concepts found in a variety of texts from around the world.
Curated OER
Apples Personified
Students write a creative writing piece by personifying apples. For this creative writing lesson, students view a PowerPoint about the writing process and brainstorm about apples. Students write a rough draft about their apple and peer...
Curated OER
Time to Sleep
Students develop vocabulary and retell a story that they have just listened to.
Curated OER
World without Trees Composition
Fourth graders write a composition on what they think the world would be like without trees. They brainstorm ideas of what they think the world would be like treeless, and creative a story. A rubric is distributed to the students which...
Curated OER
The Time I Got Lost
Third graders go through the writing process but substitute paper and pencil with the computer to create a story about "The Time I Got Lost".
Curated OER
Just Write It!
Pupils use a planning sheet to complete a story focusing on details, good word choice, and transition words. They share their stories with the class.
Curated OER
Book Report Haiku
Students study another method for writing a book report using a Haiku poem. In this book report lesson, students use the Haiku poem format to write a book report.
Curated OER
Creative Writing Inspired by Paintings
Third graders view a PowerPoint presentation of the images by Maxfield Parrish. They wirte a short story based on one image and create drawings of an imagined character.