How Clouds Are Made

This activity is a classroom demonstration where students observe how clouds are formed.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Powhatan People and the English at Jamestown

In 1607, a party of Englishmen landed in a place they called Virginia. They followed in the footsteps of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had visited Virginia (which, at the time, included North Carolina) with a party of settlers in 1585. The colony founded by Raleigh’s party failed, weakened by lack of supplies and irregular contact with England. To the people who already lived in the area, this was the land of the Powhatan Confederacy, a vast regional network of allied communities living under the leadership of Wahunsenacah (also known as Powhatan). Contact between the English and the people of the Powhatan confederacy was fraught with misunderstanding and conflict. This owed a great deal to the fact that the English were in the Americas to form a colony and make money for the Virginia Company of London, the corporation that had launched them on their voyage west. The Powhatan, on the other hand, lived out their values of kinship, allyship, and reciprocity in a way that was at first incomprehensible to the English, and that later they firmly rejected.

Material Type: Primary Source

Jamestown: The Starving Time

This activity allows students to act as historians. The student will analyze various primary documents to determine the cause of "The Starving Time" in Jamestown, Virginia. Once the students have analyzed the sources, they will be asked to write a paragraph to explain their conclusion.

Material Type: Assessment, Lesson Plan, Primary Source, Simulation, Visual Media

African American History in the United States

In this special revised and updated feature for Black History Month, teachers, parents, and students will find a collection of NEH-supported websites and EDSITEment-developed lessons that tell the four-hundred-year old story of African Americans from slavery through freedom and citizenship to the presidency.

Material Type: Reading

The Egyptian Barter Game

The Egyptian Barter Game is a lesson designed to get students active in the classroom while learning about Egyptian culture and the barter system. It is a card game (using homemade cards and other materials) which should be played more than once so students can consider their strategies used to barter their "haves" for their "needs." It should not be students' first introduction to Egyptian culture but should come after some exposure to what life was like in ancient Egypt. Addresses Virginia SOL: HSS.2.9, HSS.3.2, HSS.3.8, HSS.3.9

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Game

Author: Jean Weller

Indentured Servants: Listen and Draw

Description Overview: The growth of tobacco, rice, and indigo and the plantation economy created a tremendous need for labor in Southern English America. Without the aid of modern machinery, human sweat and blood was necessary for the planting, cultivation, and harvesting of these cash crops. While slaves existed in the English colonies throughout the 1600s, indentured servitude was the method of choice employed by many planters before the 1680s. This system provided incentives for both the master and servant to increase the working population of the Chesapeake colonies. Subject: U.S. History Level: Middle School Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Reading Provider: Independence Hall Association Provider Set: US History Date Added: 10/16/2014 License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Language: English Media Format: Graphics/Photos, Text/HTML

Material Type: Assessment, Reading

Author: Christopher Angeles

Shopping Spree

Students will practice counting money up to five dollars using grocery ads from local stores.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Lauren Gary

Smart Money

Students will practice making money trades to equal $.25 kinesthetically and with manipulatives.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Sherry Griffith

The Impact of Television on News Media

This collection uses primary sources to explore the impact of television on news media. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Material Type: Primary Source

Authors: Digital Public Library of America, Melissa Jacobs

Narratives and Names

This activity serves as an introduction to a narrative writing assignment. To provide context for this activity, teachers will give students an overview of the Census Bureau. Then, students will complete a Quickwrite about their name and its history. After that, students will examine and answer questions about census data on popular last names, listen to a story about names, and complete a Quickwrite about that story. To further prepare for their narrative writing assignment about names (which is not part of this activity), students will jot down their thoughts in a graphic organizer.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

A Trip to Wonderland: The Nursery 'Alice'

This lesson plan explores elements of wonder, distortion, fantasy, and whimsy in The Nursery "Alice," Lewis Carroll's adaptation for younger readers of his beloved classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan

Author: Individual Authors

Photosynthesis Fill In Diagram

Simple diagram illustrating the process of photosynthesis. Download this flow chart as a word document and share with students in google classroom or print the paper copies. Please feel free to edit and make any needed changes to make it relevant to your classroom. A modified version of the chart has also been included to accommodate different learning styles and provide differentiation.

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Author: Dr. Emily Harris

Go with the Energy Flow

Students learn about energy and nutrient flow in various biosphere climates and environments. They learn about herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, food chains and food webs, seeing the interdependence between producers, consumers and decomposers. Students are introduced to the roles of the hydrologic (water), carbon, and nitrogen cycles in sustaining the worlds' ecosystems so living organisms survive. This lesson is part of a series of six lessons in which students use their growing understanding of various environments and the engineering design process, to design and create their own model biodome ecosystems.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Authors: Christopher Valenti, Denise Carlson, Malinda Schaefer Zarske

The Sandbox: Perimeter, Area, and Volume

Differentiating among area, perimeter, and volume and solving practical problems. Mathematics Instructional Plans (MIPs) help teachers align instruction with the Mathematics Standards of Learning (SOL) by providing examples of how the knowledge, skills and processes found in the SOL and curriculum framework can be presented to students in the classroom.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Authors: Doris Robinson, Tina Mazzacane, Debra Delozier

Fence That Farmland!

Students develop and solidify their understanding of the concept of "perimeter" as they engage in a portion of the civil engineering task of land surveying. Specifically, they measure and calculate the perimeter of a fenced in area of "farmland," and see that this length is equivalent to the minimum required length of a fence to enclose it. Doing this for variously shaped areas confirms that the perimeter is the minimal length of fence required to enclose those shapes. Then students use the technology of a LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robot to automate this task. After measuring the perimeter (and thus required fence length) of the "farmland," students see the NXT robot travel around this length, just as a surveyor might travel around an area during the course of surveying land or measuring for fence materials. While practicing their problem solving and measurement skills, students learn and reinforce their scientific and geometric vocabulary.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Ursula Koniges

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Remix

This resource incorporates the 5E instructional model, allowing student engagement and collaboration through an interactive scaffolding activity. The literacy connection section of the resource incorporates literacy across the mathematics curriculum and the design challenge section allows students to think outside the box as they apply their own knowledge, skills, and abilities to elaborate on the final product. Section 1 - The literacy connection section allows teachers to use this activity in a whole class setting and benefits students as it allows them to explore the story sequencing of the lifecycle of the caterpillar in an active and creative environment. This activity encourages active listening skills and student ownership as it encompasses the 5E instructional model. Section 2  - The design challenge is an enrichment activity, where students are able to work as a team and construct an explanation for their design challenge. Allowing student ownership in the early ages of the design model enables student accountability in the learning process. Original resource - This is a remix of The Very Hungry Caterpillar from Illustrative Mathematics resource https://tasks.illustrativemathematics.org/content-standards/tasks/1150. 

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Sandy Chalke

Growing Bean Plant ( Remix)

This resource is a remix from Illustrative Mathematics https://tasks.illustrativemathematics.org/content-standards/tasks/1086.Considering the original resource, there are a few suggestions added to the remix. Modification 1 - Instead of providing students one type of bean ( as originally stated), it would allow curiosity if students were provided with an assorted selection of beans/seeds like sunflower seed, carrot seed, peas and bean, along with which the unifix cubes can be color-coded for each bean/seed. This would benefit all types of learners as they will be able to visualize and build a concrete conceptual understanding of the content.  Modification 2 - This modification allows students to choose the unit of measure and provide them with different types of ruler ( mm, cm and inches), promoting mathematical discourse on customary and metric conversions as they engage in selecting the appropriate unit of measure. This allows students to identify the unit of measure in an active learning environment. As teachers incorporate these two modifications, it allows students to develop a growth mindset by understanding how mathematics and science go hand in hand, encouraging literacy within the curriculum.   

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Sandy Chalke

Which picture represents one half? ( Remix)

This resource is a remix of the original lesson (https://tasks.illustrativemathematics.org/content-standards/tasks/826). As per Illustrative mathematics, the purpose of this task is for students to see different ways of partitioning a figure into two or more equal shares, by which we mean decomposing the figure into "pieces" with equal area.Suggested modifications -The modifications made to the original resource allows flexibility to teachers in instruction.The lesson plan focuses on helping students understand the idea of equivalent fractions and encourages cooperative learning to have a mathematical discourse about unit fractions.Teachers can incorporate fraction circle manipulatives, that will provide students with a hands-on active learning experience. Enrichment activity- Teachers can use art to allow the student to demonstrate creativity as they learn about fractions. Students can design or illustrate a pattern containing the conceptual concept.    

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Author: Sandy Chalke

Domino Addition ( remix)

 This resource is a remix from Illustrative Mathematics.This encourages student collaboration and allows students to have a mathematical dialogue to express their understanding of algebraic properties. This resource is a valuable part of building background when introducing units of measure or equations in the early elementary years of mathematics education as it provides students a concrete example of building an equation with concrete objects.   Suggested Modification- Encourage student online portfolio - A student recording sheet with dominos illustrations can be used as a reference for students to have a mathematical dialogue. Teachers can use online educational platforms that would allow students to record their own understanding of math and share them with the teacher. For example, Seasaw is an educational platform that students can use, but will require parental permission. It allows collaboration between teachers, students, and the parent community where students can have a voice and choice in their learning.   

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Author: Sandy Chalke

The Water Cycle Game ( remix)

This resource is a remix of https://goopenva.org/courses/the-water-cycle-game. The water cycle game helps you learn how water molecules move through various places including rivers, the ocean, the earth’s surface, the atmosphere, and clouds. Actions such as evaporation, runoff, condensation, precipitation, soil absorption, and groundwater expansion move water from one zone to another.Modifications: This game can be played in cooperative groups or use as part of a personalized or blended learning playlist. This game has a lot of visuals and would help for those visual learners to better understand the water cycle process. Another modification would be to ask students to write a reflection about the water cycle in their own words and create a vocabulary bank. This encourages literacy in curriculum allowing students to use complete sentences with appropriate grammatical usage. 

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Sandy Chalke