Classroom Resources

In this lesson, students deliberate the origins of the Chicago race riots by exploring five documents that reflect different social, cultural, and economic causes. Students will look at two separate history book accounts of the event and learn to identify bias in sources. Students will then analyze three documents from the time period to determine other factors that may have contributed to the riots. 

The website includes lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, primary source documents, and student graphic organizers. Teachers will need to create a free account to access the materials. 

In this lesson, students will choreograph simple dances in small groups and perform them for the class. Students will learn elements of dance and vocabulary by demonstrating various movements. Students will create a K-W-L chart about dance.  They will share in pairs and report findings to the class.  They will work in pairs to choreograph a 64 beat dance.  

Each day, America’s teenagers are bombarded with misleading messages about drugs. Glamorized by media and endorsed by peers, the consequences of drug use and experimentation are dangerously disguised, and often hidden altogether. The reality is that drug use can alter a teen’s life forever. That’s why every student should be given the tools to make a decision against using drugs - and the best place to give them those tools is your classroom.

This resource is lesson 11. To access videos and materials: Project Alert.com

Have you ever wondered what stretching actually does to your muscles and your body? What is the best way to stretch? And why are some people...stretchier than others? Those questions and more will be explored in this TED-Ed video.

Many teachers don’t know where to begin with PE activities and what needs to be covered. For healthy physical bodies, agility, balance, and coordination (ABC’s) are three fundamental abilities that need to be developed. These activities include cooperative skills where students must work and engage with other students.

This resource includes activity ideas using graphics and video links. This resource includes a link to purchase more activities, however, this site is free and includes many valuable learning activities. 

This Spanish language video was created specifically for novice low beginning students. It introduces students to 50 cognates, showing them that there are lots of similarities between Spanish and English. This is a great way to activate previous knowledge before introducing new material to students. A printable transcript is provided for teacher or student use. The provided link relies on Latin American Spanish but an option to view a Spain version is included. A set of printable activities is included to accompany this video.

This video is a short biography of Ernest Hemingway, an influential 20th-century author, and journalist who is best known for works such as The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea. He is one of the most famous writers of the "Lost Generation," people who came of age during or shortly after the first World War and became disillusioned by the senseless death and destruction

Sedimentary rock is naturally formed in the Earth’s crust. It is formed when sediment deposits form layers, compact, and then cement together, creating a new rock. Sedimentary rocks are used for building materials, and sometimes they even contain fossils.

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe how sedimentary rocks are formed during the rock cycle. There is a karaoke song that students can learn to help them remember the steps in the rock cycle process. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding. Students can use the information presented in this slide show to plan their own investigations.

In this interactive activity, students will be led through steps to calculate the mean (or average) of a data set. There are teaching activities as well as practice activities available. A handout that reviews the strategies taught during the activity can be printed. A karaoke song with printable lyrics will help students learn and review the steps taught during the activity. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short quiz to assess their understanding.

Learn about the importance of eating healthy foods. In this video, a group of students present and explain the types of foods that are good for our bodies, the nutrients they provide, and how these benefit our bodies. They then explain what processed foods are, why some people like them, and why they are unhealthy.

Learn to help students develop key skills for successful relationships: communication, cooperation, and conflict resolution. Educators can help students develop these skills by working together in groups and discussing roles. Parents can support their children by spending time with them and encouraging communication.

How do you know if an online image is real or not? This video from Common Sense Education provides a handout on useful guidance on using a reverse image search on Google. This resource is part of the News and Media Literacy Collection. This video can be played during a lesson on assessing the validity and identifying the purpose of digital content.

The teacher will present an informational text from the website, ReadWorks. Students will interact with this non-fiction text by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the article as an assessment. This learning activity can introduce students to fossil fuel alternatives, serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept, or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson. This learning activity could be used to demonstrate how students across the country have started to become environmentally aware and encourage students to start developing these solutions at their school. 

Kathleen Morris has created and shared a classroom poster to prompt students as to what to do if they experience computer issues in the classroom. 

This is a free download and no sign-in is required. 

This activity is called Birdie in the Cage. The object of the activity is to practice underhand serves and to become more accurate when the birdie is served. The first partner will stand on the poly spot and serve the birdie with a swing low to high, trying to strike it into the hoop or the poly spot inside of the hoop. The other partner retrieves the birdies. After a set period of time, the partners will switch roles.

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

The Flip-a-Chip activity turns ordinary poker chips into a teaching tool, showing students how different affixes and roots can be joined to make words and then placed into a context-rich paragraph. Each set of chips contains two-word roots and two affixes that can be combined into four different words. For example, the prefixes im- and sup- might be written on the two sides of one poker chip, and the roots pose and press on the other chip. The four possible words (impose, impress, suppose, suppress ) are inserted into four blanks in a paragraph according to context clues. After practicing with both real and "virtual" chips (in the Flip-a-Chip online interactive), students work in pairs to create their own set of chips and corresponding paragraph. They exchange their packets to see whether the context clues are strong enough to enable classmates to fill in the blanks correctly.

In this lesson, students will engage in an interactive activity that will enhance their understanding of story structure and story elements. After the teacher models the process of developing a plot, students work in cooperative groups to create semi-impromptu skits. Paper bags containing five unique props are distributed to each group; these props provide the impetus for the development of creative skits. Students then use online tools to outline the story elements in their skits. The lesson also promotes listening skills and critical thinking as students view other groups' performances and determine the conflict and resolution of each.

This collection includes videos, photographs, and sheet music about jazz. Students can use the collection to explore the history of jazz in America.

The class plans and builds original games using the project guide from the previous two lessons. Working individually or in pairs, the class plans, develops, and gives feedback on the games. After incorporating the peer feedback, the class shares out the completed games.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

The class is asked to consider the "problems" of boredom and self-expression and to reflect on how they approach those problems in their own lives. From there, they will explore how Computer Science in general, and programming specifically, plays a role in either a specific form of entertainment or as a vehicle for self-expression.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Text structures refer to the way authors organize information in a text. Recognizing the underlying structure of texts can help students focus attention on key concepts and relationships, anticipate what is to come, and monitor their comprehension as they read.

This informational material will provide students and teachers with background knowledge related to these structures:

• Narrative
• Chronological, process, or sequence
• Cause and effect
• Problem/solution
• Compare and contrast
• Definition or description

This document provides a definition, graphic organizer, transition words, and guiding questions for each type of text structure.

Students watch how a Chinese watchdog group is protecting the environment with this video and educational resources from PBS NewsHour from December 7, 2015. After, students read an informational text related to the video and respond to open-ended questions. This resource provides students with the opportunity to make inferences, summarize, and cite what the text says explicitly. The resource also includes domain-specific vocabulary. 

In this short practice, students review common kinds of mistakes to watch for when proofreading their writing, watch a video of employees in varying fields explain why proofreading is important in their jobs, and practice finding errors in an order for spring dance posters.

Discover how authors use figurative language to enhance their writing and explore the differences between similes and metaphors in this animated video from WNET. Discussion questions below help students to further apply their understanding before analyzing a text.

Visit Ivy Green, the birthplace of Helen Keller, in this episode of Yellowhammer History Hunt. Helen lost her sight and hearing as a young child but overcame her handicaps to become a renowned writer and activist who traveled the world to advocate for the rights of people with disabilities.

Students will complete their advertisements and identify the key elements. Working in pairs, they will create a new children's product and a marketing strategy. They will apply advertising design strategies to market their product.

A Jeopardy-style game of drug facts.

Drug Facts Challenge! is a Jeopardy-style game based on scientific findings developed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The questions and answers are based on the NIDA for Teens Drug Facts pages. 

Play as a group or have students play individually. Allow time for teens to review the NIDA for Teens Drug Facts prior to playing. You can print out or have teens access the pages online. Another option is to display each of the Drug Facts on a large screen, allowing teens ample time to read and discuss. Then, use the same large screen to display and play the Drug Facts Challenge! game.

This resource is a large collection of games and activities that are fitness focused. Most of these activities are geared towards cardio fitness.

This resource includes both written and visual descriptions. 

This video, by The Cooper Institute, discusses muscular strength, endurance, and flexibility. After viewing this. students will have a better understanding of each of these fitness components. Because this is a short video, it can be shown in physical education class without using a large amount of activity time.

This novice low to novice high Spanish activity requires students to create written/digital presentations as well as prepare oral presentations about their families. Students who do not want to describe their own family are encouraged to select a celebrity family to focus on. This presentation is a chance for students to show off their mastery of the verbs ser and estar, simple sentences, and adjective agreement. Printable instructions and a rubric is provided. This activity could be easily adapted to any language.

In this lesson, students explore the experience of a total solar eclipse and learn about the mechanics of eclipses. The opportunity to observe a total solar eclipse in person is relatively uncommon; however, photographs and videos from August 21, 2017, total solar eclipse provide students a sense of the experience. Through an interactive lesson, students investigate the orbits and relative positions of the Moon, the Sun, and Earth to understand what causes eclipses and why they are rare. At the end of the lesson, students create a model to explain why lunar and solar eclipses occur in pairs.

This resource was developed through WGBH’s Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms project, in collaboration with NASA.

The atmosphere is a blanket of gases surrounding the Earth. The gases are classified according to their temperature differences. The weight of those gases pressing down on earth is what creates air pressure.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the different layers of Earth's atmosphere, how the atmosphere supports life, and how Earth's weather occurs in the atmosphere. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Students learn basic background information about the plastics crisis, including what defines plastics, where plastic pollution comes from, and how it gets into the ocean. Working together as part of a publishing team, they synthesize a variety of multimedia resources to create their own Ocean Plastics Movement Model explaining the forces that affect plastics on a global scale. This lesson is part of the Plastics: From Pollution to Solutions unit.

The purpose of this activity is for students to develop a plan to increase their fitness levels. Students will be creating their own program in order to improve their own fitness level. Their scores will be documented on their plan. While they are in their squads, students will create their own fitness plan and reflect on the importance of fitness testing.

What does autism spectrum disorder look like in young children? Jennifer Rymanowski, a licensed behavioral analyst at Rochester Hearing and Speech Center, will describe how different each case of autism spectrum disorder is for each person they encounter.