Beacon Learning Center
Catching a Balanced Diet
First graders explore the importance of balanced meals. They play a fishing game to help them select foods to make up a balanced meal.
Curated OER
Cinderella Stories
Students read and compare Cinderella stories using a worksheet. They write and illustrate original tales with a twist.
Curated OER
Breezy Energy
Third graders view photos of machines that measure wind energy and chart what they observe in the pictures and the questions they have about the pictures. In this wind energy lesson plan, 3rd graders make a pinwheel. Students...
Curated OER
The Empirical Challenges of Racial Classification
This lesson will help students examine their preconceptions and assumptions about racial categories and understand the impossibility of constructing a consistent system of human racial classification.
Curated OER
Help Mary Find Her Way Home
Students discover the first quadrant of the coordinate plane by using coordinate points to give directions. They show a lost girl the way home using coordinate points. They add definitions to their math journals.
Curated OER
Diagramming Annabelle Lee
Eighth graders examine the parts of the Edgar Allan Poe poem, "Annabelle Lee." After listening to the poem, 8th graders utilize a study guide imbedded in this plan to help them diagram the poem. A great lesson plan on poetry!
Curated OER
Comparatively Speaking
Students practice creating similes and metaphors together as a class. Individually students create similes and metaphors and illustrate them.
Curated OER
Come On, You Can Trust Me
Fourth graders see how to define and then recognize a variety of propaganda techniques at work in their everyday world. Choosing one technique, they creatively demonstrate a thorough understanding from real world experiences. A very rich...
Curated OER
Place Values and Patterns, What is the Value?
First graders discover the significance of a number's place value by interactively engaging patterns and two-digit place values. In this mathematics instructional activity, 1st graders complete a 10 by 10 grid to create a number puzzle.
Curated OER
Sources of Energy
Students research various methods for preparing food and analyze energy sources. They explain that radiation, light, and heat are forms of energy used to cook food, treat diseases, and provide energy.
Curated OER
Don't Let Computers Bug You
Students write paragraph about a bug using the computer, an Internet encyclopedia, and word processing program.
Curated OER
The Inside Story
Eighth graders study the usage of symbolism in poetry and examine how symbolism can be used to explain their own lives and emotions. They read and discuss poems by Robert Frost and Shel Silverstein.
Curated OER
A Moment in Time
Eighth graders study poems to see how punctuation, line length, rhythm and word choice can be used to create a memorable moment. They read and discuss poems by Shel Silverstein.
Curated OER
Personify This
Eighth graders study personification in published works of poetry, then create their own through the use of diamante or cinquain poetry. They read and discuss poetry by Shel Silverstein, William Jay Smith, and Elinor Wylie.
Curated OER
I Just Want to Say
Eighth graders study poetic devices included in conversation poems and explore their eloquent messages. They read and discuss poems by Langston Hughes and Don Marquis.
Curated OER
LIFE IS LIKE
Students explore how to create their own metaphors for life. They create poetry folders including found poetry and their own metaphors and similes.
Curated OER
The Complexities of Reconstruction
Fourth graders critically analyze the social, economic, and political impact of the Federalization of the South. They develop a PowerPoint presentation relative to the Post Civil War South.
Curated OER
The Race to Dominate the Known World
Students describe cause/effect relationship of a European country's need for resources, exploration, colonization, and settlement of different regions of the world beginning in the 14th Century, and role play representatives of assigned...
Curated OER
Measurement Scavenger Hunt
Students review estimation, measurement, fractions, decimals while familiarizing themselves with a new classroom at the beginning of the year.
Curated OER
Reaction Time
Third graders review important vocabulary to explain measures of central tendency and reaction time. In pairs, they measure reaction time of dropping and catching a ruler. Data is collected after repeated catches and information is...
Curated OER
Search for the Missing Pi
Third graders work in groups of two to three with measuring tapes, finding the circumference and diameter of teacher-selected circular items. They relate circumference and diameter measurements to find pi.
Curated OER
Disasters - Where, When, Why
Fourth graders research natural disasters that have occurred in the US in the twentieth century. They create computer based database and use the information to write a paragraph.
Curated OER
Details and Observations IQ or the Eyes Have it
Fourth graders study Chaucer as a master of details. Then, they create a short story linking unrelated details into a logical plot with a clear setting and established characters. This lesson has some excellent worksheets attached!
