Journey around the world with students as they read a Japanese, African, or Welsh folk tale, create a visual depiction of the tale, research the tale's culture, and present findings.
Exploring World Cultures Through Folk Tales
Grades
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The Two Voices of the ow Spelling Pattern
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Variable vowels are the focus of this lesson; students use nursery rhymes and ow to study how vowels can change their sounds according to different spelling patterns.
Grades
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Analyzing Character Development in Three Short Stories About Women
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Students read three short stories about women; discuss the development of female characters, gender differences, and society's expectations; and write scripts in which the characters discuss their similarities and differences.
Grades
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Once They're Hooked, Reel Them In: Writing Good Endings
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
It's important to "hook" readers at a story's beginning, but it's equally important to keep them interested. In this lesson, students learn to write effective conclusions to their own stories.
Grades
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Building a Learning Community: Crafting Rules for the Classroom
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students will learn to mind their ps and qs in this lesson on etiquette and appropriate behavior in the classroom.
Grades
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Is Superman Really All That Super? Critically Exploring Superheroes
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
What makes a superhero super? By comparing popular culture superheroes with heroic characters in children's literature, students learn to think critically about character traits, and consider how cultural perspectives influence the kinds of heroes we choose.
Grades
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Digital Reflections: Expressing Understanding of Content Through Photography
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Striking images can leave lasting impressions on viewers. In this lesson, students make textselfworld connections to a nature- or science-related topic as they collaboratively design a multimedia presentation.
Grades
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Media Literacy: Examining the World of Television Teens
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Pop culture and the classroom collide in this lesson when students go behind the scenes to analyze a television series for characterization to use in an original television show proposal.
Grades
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Slipping, Sliding, Tumbling: Reinforcing Cause and Effect Through Diamante Poems
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Writing, revising, and publishing are just a few of the tasks students will complete in order to take their cause-and-effect diamante poems from an idea to a reality.
Grades
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Music and Me: Visual Representations of Lyrics to Popular Music
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Students will whistle while they work on this lesson, creating a photomontage movie of their interpretation of a favorite song's lyrics that will end everyone's day on a high note.
Grades
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Reading Informational Texts Using the 3-2-1 Strategy
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students can count on using the 3-2-1 strategy to help them successfully comprehend and write about an informational text.
Grades
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My Life/Your Life: A Look at Your Parents' Past
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Past and present come together when students interview their parents and create a skit that compares their parents' experiences as middle schoolers with the students' own lives.
Grades
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Play Ball! Encouraging Critical Thinking Through Baseball Questions
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Cooperation and critical thinking are the name of the game as students use baseball facts they find online to create trivia questions for a class Jeopardy game.
Grades
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Storytelling in the Social Studies Classroom
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Unit
People make the past come alive as students research and then share stories about famous Americans who promoted democratic ideals.
Grades
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A Race With Grace: Sports Poetry in Motion
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
In this lesson, athletics, aesthetics, and poetics intersect in new ways as developing literacy learners experiment together with the forms of language.
Grades
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Choosing the Right Book: Strategies for Beginning Readers
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Recurring Lesson
Students make purposeful choices for their reading materials, thinking about their reasons for reading a book and using strategies to match books to their abilities.
Grades
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Exploring Author's Voice Using Jane Addams Award-Winning Books
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Unit
History has many faces in this lesson in which students read Jane Addams Award-winning books to learn about peace, social justice, world community, and equality.
Grades
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Comparing Electronic and Print Texts About the Civil War Soldier
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Which side will win as students investigate both sides of the battle of using print versus online text for research as they learn about the lives of Civil War soldiers?
Grades
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Cosmic Oranges: Observation and Inquiry Through Descriptive Writing and Art
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students will eat up this lesson about oranges as they practice the skills that help them investigate and make detailed observations for descriptive purposes.
Grades
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Flying to Freedom: Tar Beach and The People Could Fly
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students look to the past and use historical context to compare and contrast two characters from folktales.