Students engage in a rich study of vocabulary words from the song "America the Beautiful," using music and art.
"America the Beautiful": Using Music and Art to Develop Vocabulary
Grades
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Entering History: Nikki Giovanni and Martin Luther King, Jr.
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Nikki Giovanni's poem "The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr." is paired with Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, taking students on a quest through time to the Civil Rights movement.
Grades
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Collaborating on a Class Book: Exploring Before-During-After Sequences
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students and the teacher produce a class book through a group-writing activity, focusing on a basic before-during-after sequence of events.
Grades
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Living the Dream: 100 Acts of Kindness
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Recurring Lesson
This lesson provides the "action piece" for any study of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In this project, students participate in Dr. King's dream by doing 100 acts of kindness.
Grades
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Martin Luther King, Jr. and Me: Identifying with a Hero
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
This lesson provides ideas for celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by encouraging students to explore the connections between Dr. King and themselves through journaling and inquiry-based research.
Grades
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Introducing Basic Media Literacy Education Skills with Greeting Cards
5 - 6
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
In this lesson, students examine and create holiday/event cards, analyze holiday elements, and create their own. The activities help students focus on the reasons for composing messages as they do.
Grades
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A Recipe for Writing: Fairy Tale Feasts
2 - 4
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
After examining recipes written based on students' favorite fairy tales, students research a recipe related to their favorite story, book, or fairy tale and include it in a classroom recipe book.
Grades
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Boars and Baseball: Making Connections
4 - 7
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
In this lesson, students will make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections after reading In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. After sharing and discussing connections, students choose and plan a project that makes a personal connection to the text.
Grades
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Writing Acrostic Poems with Thematically Related Texts in the Content Areas
2 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students read thematically related texts, scaffolded from simple to complex, to help them gather necessary concept vocabulary and background knowledge in a content area. They then write acrostic poems to organize and present their learning in a creative way.
Grades
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Myth and Truth: Independence Day
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
By exploring myths and truths surrounding Independence Day, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding the beginning of the Revolutionary War and the Independence Day holiday.
Grades
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How Big Are Martin's Big Words? Thinking Big about the Future
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Minilesson
Inspired by the book Martin's Big Words, students explore information on Dr. King to think about his "big" words, then they write about their own "big" words and dreams.
Grades
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Seasonal Haiku: Writing Poems to Celebrate Any Season
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
After listening to haiku poetry, students use seasonal descriptive words to write their own haiku, following the traditional format. They then publish their poems by mounting them on illustrated backgrounds.
Grades
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Swish! Pow! Whack! Teaching Onomatopoeia Through Sports Poetry
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students explore poetry about sports, looking closely at the use of onomatopoeia. After viewing a segment of a sporting event, students create their own onomatopoeic sports poems.
Grades
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Beyond "What I Did on Vacation": Exploring the Genre of Travel Writing
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
After reading and analyzing short examples of travel writing and discussing conventions of the genre, students write their own travel articles.
Grades
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Spelling in Parts: Learning to Spell, Write, and Read Polysyllabic Words
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Recurring Lesson
How do you spell polysyllabic? While this word may be a bit too advanced for students, they will definitely be spelling polysyllabic words using a strategy called Spelling in Parts.
Grades
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Exploring Disability Using Multimedia and the B-D-A Reading Strategy
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
History takes on new dimensions in this interactive multimedia lesson that emphasizes the B-D-A approach to research as students investigate the experiences of people with disabilities since the early 1800s.
Grades
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Let's Build a Snowman
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Minilesson
In this lesson, students use both fiction and nonfiction texts, the Internet, and a K-W-L chart to learn about how animals survive the winter.
Grades
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Guided Comprehension: Previewing Using an Anticipation Guide
3 - 6
Lesson Plan
| Recurring Lesson
Based on the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson introduces students to the comprehension strategy of previewing.
Grades
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A Directed Listening-Thinking Activity for "The Tell-Tale Heart"
6 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
What's that sound? Students participate in a Directed ListeningThinking Activity (DLTA) using "The Tell-Tale Heart," make predictions, and respond in the form of an acrostic poem or comic strip.
Grades
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Poetry: Sound and Sense
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students' groans about studying poetry may disappear with this lesson in which students read poetry from various writers and use these poems to examine the sounds and sense of language.