Urban Education Exchange
Lessons and Units: The Watsons go to Birmingham—1963 5TH GRADE UNIT
Get ready to read The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 with a lesson about historical fiction. Spanning several centuries, the resource prompts learners to guess the historical era of a story based on a word or phrase...
Channel Islands Film
Sa Hi Pa Ca (Once Upon a Time): Lesson Plan 2
What tools do archaeologists and anthropologist use to learned about what life was like in the past. After watching West of The West's documentary Once Upon a Time that details how scientists use artifacts to establish a...
National Park Service
A Natural Resource Called Peace
Get your pupils outside and teach them about peace at the same time! Scholars create a list describing peace, hike outside, add to that list, and later create poems. The exercises support differentiation for your individual classes as...
Curated OER
Lesson: A Spider's Perspective
A fun way to grow a class of creative thinkers, is to add creative projects to your weekly line up. Kids pretend they are small insects or spiders crawling up the side of a huge building. They use vivid imagery, rich detail, and their...
Curated OER
At the Crayon Factory: high frequency and spelling words
After reading the story At The Crayon Factory learners complete 4 different language arts activities. They write spelling and high frequency words, fill in the blanks to sentences, answer short answer questions, and write...
Curated OER
Story Retelling
Students explore storytelling by participating in an image analysis activity. In this story structure lesson, students read the book Cookie's Week by Tomie dePaola and retell the story to their teacher in sequential order. Students...
Curated OER
James and the Giant Peach
This James and the Giant Peach worksheet provides 15 short answer questions and extension activities. They address characterization, basic reading comprehension, making personal connections to the reading, and more. The...
Teach-nology
Gary the Skateboarding Gorilla
Skateboarding fans will love to read about Gary the gorilla, who loves his red skateboard! As kids read the short passage, they fill in the blanks with words from the word bank at the bottom of the page.
Curated OER
Comic and Film Strip Writing
Students write a funny story and illustrate it in a comic strip. In this comic strip instructional activity, students study comic strips and determine the plot of each story. Students then write a short story and illustrate it using a...
Curated OER
Massive Resistance and School Integration
Fourth graders write a short story that shows their feelings on a chosen historical perspective on school integration of the past. In this school integration lesson plan, 4th graders learn about Separate But Equal, resistance to change,...
Curated OER
What If: The Seed Of A Story
Students read and comprehend a piece of fictional writing, analyze how setting, characterization, and plot affect the theme of a story and work in a group to create a new writing assignment. This 5-day plan culminates in students writing...
National First Ladies' Library
Writing (and Rewriting!) History
Middle schoolers differentiate between fiction and non-fiction, discuss historical fiction, which combines both genres, choose historical novel from list and read independently, and write original short stories that combine elements of...
Curated OER
Diego Rivera: Art as the Universal Language
Students analyze the work of Diego Rivera. They participate in a class discussion, critique various paintings, write a short story based on a Rivera mural, and create a class mural.
Curated OER
The Human Organism
Students identify their feelings and learn constructive ways of handling conflict. In this human mental health lesson plan, students identify their feelings, learn how to tell others about their feelings, and learn how to resolve...
Curated OER
The Tell-Tale Hearts of Writers
Knock, knock, knock...Creep out your class with a critical thinking lesson focused on word relationships in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." They investigate the relationship between word choice, mood, and interpretation of...
The New York Times
Writing Fiction Based on Real Science - NYTimes.com
Refuse to alienate your scientific-minded young scholars during your creative writing unit. Learners explore how literary writing can reflect observable fact, and be based in actual science. The links include examples of fiction and...
Curated OER
Farewell to Manzanar
Examine human resilience across two texts with a detailed unit. Over the course of a week, learners will conduct a close reading of excerpts from Unbroken and Farewell to Manzanar. The resource includes clear procedures for reading and...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing Outline
Students explore the elements of a narrative for its purpose, type of audience, mood, main character, minor characters, setting, and conflicts in the story. A story outline is developed and a five paragraph essay composed in this lesson.
Curated OER
Learning Short a and Long a sounds
Students recognize the difference between the short a sound and the long a sound, then compile a list of words containing short a and long a sounds.
Curated OER
Beginning Short Stories - "Oh No!"
In this beginning short stories learning exercise, students read a basic version of a story and then they read an advanced version of the same story. Students then answer 8 questions about the story and its vocabulary.
Curated OER
Ideas of John Locke
In this life, liberty, and property worksheet, students read about the influences of John Locke and then write a short story on the back of the page. Students write about how life, liberty, and property have influenced them and their...
Curated OER
Suppressing Short O
Students complete a variety of activities as they explore/review the letter 'o' and the short /o/ sound. They recite short /o/ tongue twisters, practice writing the letter 'o', and listen to stories, identifying words with the short /o/...
Curated OER
Short O and Digraph SH
First graders practice the short o and sh sound. In this phonics lesson plan, 1st graders listen to the stories Hot Pot: The Sound of Short O by Alice K. Flanagan and Shoes: The Sound of SH by Peg Ballard. They create word webs...
Curated OER
Understanding Cause and Effect
Young scholars experience and study cause and effect as they assess the consequences man faces when time travel is attempted. They determine, in their imaginations, what time period they would like to visit. Each student then listens to,...