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ALEX Lesson Plans
Subject: English Language Arts (3 - 5), or English Language Arts (3 - 5), or Technology Education (3 - 5)
Title: Sandwich Story Starters
Description: These simple activities actively reinforce the importance of writing a story that is complete: one that has a good, solid beginning; a middle of substance, detail, and high interest; and a satisfying ending.
Subject: English Language Arts (2 - 4), or English Language Arts (2 - 4)
Title: Descriptive Essay
Description: Students learn to use one-main-idea think-sheets when producing simple descriptive essays.
Thinkfinity Lesson Plans
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Using Historical Fiction to Learn About the Civil War
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Description: Students in grades 4 and 5 discuss inferential comprehension and visualization as they use a think-aloud questioning strategy to develop a deeper understanding of a historical novel.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Arts,Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Dust Bowl Days
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Description: This unit of seven lessons, from EDSITEment, introduces the dramatic era of the Great Depression to students through photographs, songs, and interviews with people who lived through the Dust Bowl years. These lessons also help students understand the problems Americans were facing during the Great Depression and the attempts of the government and citizens to solve these problems.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Montgomery Ward published the first mail-order catalog in 1872.
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Description: Students explore how and why catalogs have changed over the years and compare their findings about printed catalogs with online catalogs.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Wartime Poetry: Working With Similes
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Description: Students analyze a photograph, brainstorm words to describe the characters' senses and feelings, work in pairs to describe a character's experience, and create a poem using their ideas and similes.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Q is for Duck: Using Alphabet Books With Struggling Writers
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Description: A is for zoo? Q is for duck? The alphabet as students know it is transformed when students create a class book that contains clever associations for each letter of the alphabet.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Can You Convince Me? Developing Persuasive Writing
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Description: Through a classroom game and resource handouts, students learn about the techniques used in persuasive oral arguments and apply them to independent persuasive writing activities.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Caldecott Medal-winner Virginia Lee Burton was born on this day in 1909.
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Description: Students discuss similarities in Burton's illustrations and writing style in her many books, in addition to her use of personification.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: The first English printer, William Caxton, was born on this day in 1422.
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Description: Students consider how the printing press affects their world by completing a printing inventory, comparing lists, and developing a '' super'' list of all printed materials that they interact with.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Children's publisher John Newbery was born in 1713.
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Description: Each student chooses a book that is special and writes a short story about why it deserves special mention. Students can plan the pages of their own stories and then make a Stapleless Book or use the ReadWriteThink Printing Press.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: November is National American Indian Heritage Month.
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Description: Students explore Native American heritage through the study of pourquoi tales, write their own original pourquoi tales, and use the ReadWriteThink Printing Press to publish them.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Looking for the History in Historical Fiction: An Epidemic for Reading
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Description: This lesson pairs the reading of historical fiction with nonfiction to introduce students to the large themes of history.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Arts,Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Oh Say Can You See What the Star Spangled Banner Means?
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Description: This unit of eight lessons, from EDSITEment, is designed to explore the symbolic, historical, and literary background of the American flag, beginning with Francis Scott Key's poetic account of the bombardment of Fort McHenry. Using archival documents and images, students associate Key's words with historic events and recognize the sentiment those words inspired. In the second part of the unit, students review the symbols within the flag and look at some historic images of the flag that have become part of American national consciousness.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Voting! What's It All About?
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Description: Students explore a variety of sources for information about voting. They evaluate the information to determine if it is fact or opinion, and then create a graffiti wall about voting.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Language Arts
Title: A Case for Reading-Examining Challenged and Banned Books
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Description: This ReadWriteThink-reviewed website, provided by Plainfield Community School Corporation, contains a WebQuest that explores the issues of censorship pertaining to the occult content of the popular Harry Potter novels. Students can take on the roles of concerned citizens, public librarians, school librarians, and fans of Harry Potter and decide whether the books should be banned from the public library.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Subject: Language Arts
Title: The first woman swam the English Channel in 1926.
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Description: Students brainstorm a list of famous athletic competitors and establish criteria for what makes an athlete '' famous.'' Students then forecast which of today's athletes will still be remembered in 75 to 100 years.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Investigating Junk Mail: Negotiating Critical Literacy at the Mailbox
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Description: Students increase their media literacy skills by critically examining and revising junk mail.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Alaska Native Stories: Using Narrative to Introduce Expository Text
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Description: Tradition and technology come together in this lesson in which students learn about Alaskan animals through Native American tales and their own online research.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Using Prediction as a Prereading Strategy
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Description: Students learn about and apply the prediction strategy while reading a trade book. They use response journals to record questions and responses based on prereading predictions.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Susan B. Anthony voted on this date in 1872, leading to her arrest.
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Description: After assigning special privileges to an arbitrarily designated group, students write about how they felt during the simulation and consider what they might be willing to do to change an unjust law.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Faith Ringgold was born on October 8, 1930.
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Description: Students use Ringgold's books as a springboard for a discussion of race, gender, and civil rights, and then write and illustrate original picture books on these topics.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Find favorite book picks in the Children's Choices.
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Description: Students create lists of their favorite books and then the class creates a '' Top Picks'' class booklist. Students can use the Book Cover Creator to create a book jacket for their favorite book.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2,3,4,5,6
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