Classroom Resources

This printable features a blank calavera / sugar skull for students to decorate. It offers an easy addition to any díá de los muertos (Day of the Dead) culture lesson and connects students with an important product found within traditional Mexican culture. 

Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space. That is why mass and volume are the properties of matter.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the properties and characteristics of matter. This resource can provide background information for students before they conduct their own investigations. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Use this to guide your students to reflection as they evaluate their feet passing skills. 

This activity is a quick warm-up created for 3-5 graders. The activity builds off previous knowledge of fitness concepts and skills such as jumping jacks, mountain climbers, burpees, etc.

Minnie, a teenager living with diabetes, goes to a gym for the first time to work out in this video adapted from Living with MyType2. Minnie’s coach, Brandi, guides her through different exercises and stretches. She also discusses some strategies that Minnie can adopt to stay motivated to exercise and help control her diabetes.

Learn to use internet search engines like a detective, in this animated video from RUFF RUFFMAN: HUMBLE MEDIA GENIUS. The much-loved character Ruff Ruffman is back, this time with a guide to exploring the web using internet search engines. Sharing tactics that include verifying the authenticity of Web sites, and refining a search, Ruffman guides students in the responsible use of a twenty-first-century skill. This resource is part of the RUFF RUFFMAN: HUMBLE MEDIA GENIUS Collection. This video can be played during a lesson on conducting basic keyword searches to produce valid appropriate results and evaluating results for accuracy, relevance, and appropriateness.

Welcome to Search Strategies! If you are like most people, it is very easy to get lost and spend hours trying to find the correct answer to your question while on the Internet. Never fear, because you are going to learn the best sites for doing your research and you will never again spend hours lost in the huge spiderweb of the Internet.  

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

When you have completed this activity you will:​

1. know how to search for and evaluate information [Knowledge Constructor]

2. know the best tools for doing research [Knowledge Constructor]

3. know how to search safely [Knowledge Constructor]

4. be able to properly cite resources [Knowledge Constructor]

The National Wellness Institute promotes Six Dimensions of wellness: emotional, occupational, physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual. Addressing all six dimensions of wellness in our lives builds a holistic sense of wellness and fulfillment.

Developed by Dr. Bill Hettler, co-founder of the National Wellness Institute (NWI), this interdependent model for the Six Dimensions of Wellness provides the categories from which NWI derives its resources and services.

This alignment results from the ALEX Health/PE COS Resource Alignment Summit.

The goal of this learning activity is to help your students expand their knowledge of physical activity beyond sports and help them identify non-competitive things they can do to improve their personal fitness levels or increase their activity levels such as walking the dog or taking out the trash.

This alignment results from the ALEX Health/PE COS Resource Alignment Summit.

There are many back to school activities that take place to help create a classroom community. It is important for students to feel that they own the space and the learning that takes place in their classroom. Foster such ownership for students by collaboratively writing an owner's manual that describes the classroom's areas and procedures. Students begin by sharing thoughts and feelings about school so far and brainstorming a list of important classroom places, routines, and events. Next, they select an item from the brainstormed list and write a draft description of how their topic “works” in the classroom and after peer-review, make appropriate revisions. Then students use interactive tools to create their piece of the classroom owner's manual. Finally, students share their work and decide as a class how to share the information with others, such as an Open House or when new students join the classroom.

This lesson is a great way to teach both scientific and English content to a class, although the teacher can easily choose another book and subject area. In this lesson, students listen to poems in the book Science Verse by Jon Scieszka. Students then create diamante, acrostic, or theme poems with illustrations. To help increase fluency, students read their poems to the class. Finally, students create original poems using facts they have learned in the current science curriculum.

Verb tense is used to show when an action occurs, whether it is in the past, the present, or the future. This is a short, fun video with an activity sheet students can use to practice identifying the correct verb tense.

There are three perfect verb tenses; all three are created using the helping verb “to have” in different ways. This resource allows students to practice identifying perfect verb tenses.

Steve Trash teaches kids about science with fun and magic. The show is filmed in Alabama.

Water pollution is never good. It’s even worse when your neighborhood cow is making it. Steve discusses the many ways that farmers and ranchers work to keep streams and ponds free of pollution as one example of how everyone can play a role. Then Steve delves into how scientists collect and use data.

This article provides instructions on how to use the app iMotion by Fingerlab.  It is a free iOS app for time-lapse and stop-motion animation.  Students should consider creating a storyboard, set design, lighting, camera angles, using a tripod, and how many shots to take in sequence.  Additional apps are listed for both iPads and Android.   

Students will read about choreographers and what they do.  The famous choreographers mentioned are Bob Fosse, George Balanchine, Alvin Ailey, and Martha Graham.  Students will research dances by choreographers and choreograph their own routines.  

In this lesson, students will develop a model to describe that matter is made up of tiny particles, too small to be seen. Students will use the model to describe the differences in attraction among the particles of a solid, liquid, and gas. Finally, students will use their models of solids, liquids, and gases to explain their observations in the lesson.

Students will write their name using large stick letters. They will fill in negative space with lines, patterns, or color.  

Students will collect mementos and pictures that are meaningful to them.  They will use these pictures, magazine pictures, and/or scrap pieces of paper to create a collage. 

In this novice high to intermediate low Chinese activity, students will plan a menu for a Chinese New Year's Eve dinner. They will randomly select from a set of provided food cards and use their selected cards to prepare a menu that aligns with traditional Chinese New Year's traditions. Students will have to be careful though because some foods are considered lucky while others are considered unlucky so understanding the cultural importance of each dish will be important. 

Students will use metaphors and similes to express emotions. They will use watercolors to paint lines and colors to express a chosen emotion. Assessment rubric, letter to parents, examples of artwork, and lesson plan included in PDF.   

This unique coloring book provides one page for each letter of the alphabet. On each page, students are introduced to an item of importance to Central America such as animals, artifacts, or art. This resource is bilingual so there is a set in both English and Spanish, along with activities that introduce students to various aspects of Central America and its history. In the elementary classroom, consider providing each student a different letter of the alphabet to color and share with the class. Then, hang all letters up around the room as a constant reminder of the key products from this area of the word.

Bowler’s Ed is a fun, progressive, and innovative approach to promoting a healthy and active lifestyle while teaching a lifetime sport to children at an early age. The FREE Bowler’s Ed curriculum is approved by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE), certified by the United States Bowling Congress (USBC), and recognized by the Bowling Proprietors Association of America (BPAA). Educators are provided the appropriate tools to be successful whether an experienced bowler or teaching it for the first time.

Stress is a part of life, but students may have difficulty coping and feel overwhelmed, which can increase the risk for drug use. The article “Stressed Out?” helps explain how the body’s stress response system works, as well as the health consequences of ongoing (chronic) stress. Students will learn how their bodies respond to stress, and how they can manage under pressure.

Sir Readalot is an interactive game that helps students with context clues. Other skills that kids can work on in this classroom resource include drawing conclusions, facts and opinions, and syllables. This classroom resource also includes a quiz, worksheet, and teaching video to help with understanding.

This unit plan includes four lessons using a storyboard to create an ebook. In the first lesson, students will use a storyboard to plan an ebook for a short three-part story of their own choosing. In the second lesson, students will develop their understanding of how storytelling can be enhanced using visual arts techniques. In the third lesson, students will be able to take an image using an iPad and use it effectively in an ebook. In the fourth lesson, students will record sounds to accompany the text and images for their ebooks.

In this lesson, students will be able to plan and carry out an investigation to identify which two of the three ingredients in baking powder react to produce a gas when water is added. Students will be able to explain that mixing substances can cause a chemical reaction that results in the formation of a new substance. Students will also be able to explain that substances react in characteristic ways and that the way a substance reacts can be used to identify the substance. 

Students will read about Mariachi.  The article includes information about history, instruments, and suits.  Students will listen to Mariachi music.  

Students will analyze the painting "Streets of Mbari."  They will listen to and evaluate the musical elements of The Marketplace at Limoges by Modest Mussorgsky. They will write a narrative based on their impression of both the painting and music.  

Students will analyze A Storm on the Mediterranean Coast and A Calm at a Mediterranean Port by Claude-Joseph Vernet.  They will choose to paint a stormy or calm landscape.  They will use colored pencils to draw objects in the foreground and middle ground.  They will use watercolors to paint the sky.    

This resource is a large collection of football lead-up games. These games are geared towards throwing and catching and moving to open space. 

This resource uses both written descriptions and informative videos to provide details about how each activity is played. 

Students will analyze a piece of artwork using the ten times two method.  They will compile a list of ten items they notice.  The class will discuss the lists.  Then, the students will create another list of ten items they notice about the artwork. In pairs, the students will analyze the similarities and differences between the two lists. 

This learning activity is great for a warm-up activity, a chasing or fleeing activity, or an activity to practice specific locomotor skills. Additionally, because this game is designed so that students move along lines on the gym floor, this game can also be used to teach pathways and directionality. 

This short lesson is aimed at getting youth to think about their responses to stressful or challenging situations, and to respond positively rather than by adding to the difficulty.

In this lesson, students observe chemical reactions that produce obvious effects (as opposed to reactions in which the substances appear not to change at all). They begin by exploring a different substance every day for one week. They compare the substances and learn that substances can be solids, liquids, or gases. Next, through teacher demonstration (or direct, supervised student involvement), students watch what happens when sand and water are mixed together (no chemical reaction), and when several pairs of acids and bases are mixed together (a chemical reaction occurs). Students then get to build their own "film canister rockets," using baking soda and vinegar as rocket fuel. This lesson concludes with open-ended thinking when students are asked to determine where rust comes from.