How should students analyze a painting? This middle/ high school project gives a writing structure for analyzing painting in this cross disciplinary unit.
While the UK celebrates safer internet day on February 7, we can go through and get some great resources for kids of all ages (including some SmartBoard templates.)
In the chinese lantern festival (coming up on February 6), children in China and in other areas across Asia, carry lanterns with riddles on them as they go into their temples. Here are some lesson plans and templates for making your own lanterns. You could have students put riddles on them relating to topics you have going in your classroom.
Here is an interesting point as I research inquiry based learning and move to look in a database that is largely built from overseas. Many places called "inquiry" "enquiry" so in this set of lessons across the curriculum, I have to search using the term "enquiry" to turn up what have been tagged as "inquiry based" lesson plans.
There are many nuances like that as you start looking at best practices across the world to remember. Eventually, hopefully, language searches will translate between common languages (like English) to help us bridge best practices.
If you're looking into inquiry-based learning (or equiry-based depending upon where you're from) - this is a database of lesson plans from Kindergarten up in different categories.
A moon landing simulation that requires students to understand mass, thrust, fuel consumption, and lunar gravity. This has been used with all ages of students.
Earth Day is April 22. Here are lesson plans for Earth Day that you can then use to tie into Arbor Day the next week. Environment, sustainability are both important topics that should be discussed in every school.
A set of US department of energy lesson plans about energy, and many science topics. (72 lesson plans). There are many activities you can use organized by age.
If you get into mock trials as a way to learn about the judicial system, there is a national high school mock trial championship here in the United States.
A friend of mine passed this lesson plan on to me with this note to Literature teachers:
"Sick of Jacobean literature meaning Shakespeare? Check out this resource on Christopher Marlowe's Faust. "
I think that this is a very good point and is the type of lesson that AP literature would use in the US. There is a reading guide, powerpoint, and it also incorporates John Milton's Paradise Lost as a comparative text.
A body image lesson from Media Smart. The UK is using this as part of their "body confidence" campaign but it is a great set to look at for those working with body image and self esteem of any kind. There are a lot of great media smart resources here for guidance counselors and health teachers.
A set of lesson plans for grades 6-8 from PBS to help students understand and reflect upon those who are deaf. This is integrated with writing as well.
Snow white just premiered in London so there will be a lot of interest. (Charlize Theron and Kristin Stewart are in the adaptation.) If you're wanting to talk about Snow White, here are some lesson plans and information for that purpose.
Grammar girl has so many great ways to remember things in grammar. I've missed the words "effect" and "affect" in the past and am working on improving my own grammar. It is one of those things i've been taught all of this and when I was valedictorian I knew it but somewhere in there between there and here I've forgotten some of it. I go to grammar girl to give me ways to remember it. OK affect - verb; effect - noun. Grammar teachers will enjoy her.
An incredible set of Google forms that you can use in your classroom. One tip - never collect emails or you violate Google's terms of service and can lose access to the spreadsheet like we did with our Eracism project last week.
There are many excellent interactive whiteboard resources on the web. In this one, students sequence the seasonal events in the year of a woodland habitat. The students click the picture to read and listen to explanations and drag them to put them in the correct order.
This is a lesson plan that you can use as a starting point if you choose to involve your classrooms in the movement to end slavery in the world.
Could you imagine if we could leave a legacy of this one thing. Our job is to speak for the helpless and to encourage empathy and understanding for others in this generation of children. It isn't all about what you can get, but about what you can give.
This booklet is out of the UK.
"The antislavery movement was the first major campaign in Britain to involve ordinary citizens across all classes (as well as the slaves themselves) in the struggle to end the practice. As such it is a good example of how change can come about when people work together for a just cause. This booklet More…intends inspire and equip young people to take a stand against the continuation of slavery and injustice in the world today."