This lesson is part of a larger research unit, students have their source material and will highlight keywords and phrases using the graphic organizer from Step Up to Writing and build a paragraph on animal contributions to their environment.

In this lesson plan, students will learn about the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. In the introductory first lesson, they will see how animals are often used as symbols. In the second lesson, they will hear one of several versions of how the 12 animals were chosen. They will then focus upon a few of the animals in the story and see how they can be used as symbols of certain human characteristics. In the third lesson, they will be introduced to the other animals of the zodiac, and they will be given a chart on which they will assign traits to each animal. Then they will consult a number of websites to find the traits traditionally associated with the animals, which they will add to their list. Then, they will come up with a number of ways to compare and contrast the animals in the list. In the third lesson, they will focus upon the animal associated with the year of their birth, learning about its traits and discussing whether or not these apply to themselves and their peers. Finally, each student will make an acrostic, combining the letters of his or her first name with adjectives that relate to his or her zodiac sign.

This Adobe Spark Page displays animal characteristics that are essential for survival in a desert habitat.

Kirsten Lepore is an artist and filmmaker who works with different animation techniques, including stop-motion animation and claymation. With these videos, learn more about the intentions behind her food-focused film, the unusual materials she works with to create her projects, and why she loves the laborious process of stop-motion animation. Lepore also demonstrates the basics of shooting a stop-motion animation film.

Following the traditional form of the haiku, students publish their own haikus using Animoto, an online web tool that creates slideshows that blend text and music.

The purpose of this project is two-fold: first, to encourage students to make the reading of poetry a creative act; and, second, to help students appreciate particular literary devices in their functions as semaphores or interpretive signals. Those devices that are about the imagery of a poem (metaphor, simile, personification, description) can be thought of as magnifying glasses: we see most clearly that upon which the poet focuses our gaze. Similarly, those poetic devices that are about the sound of the poem (alliteration, consonance, enjambment, onomatopoeia, and repetition) can be thought of as volume buttons or amplifiers: we hear most clearly what the poet makes us listen to most attentively.

Learn about actress Anna May Wong—the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star, producer and one of the most influential style icons of her time, in this resource from Unladylike2020. Throughout Wong’s career, she encountered racism and stereotyping in the roles she was offered, but in the end she found a way to flourish as an actor on her own terms starring in 60 films. Using video, discussion questions, vocabulary, teaching tips, and an in-class activity, students learn about Wong’s place in Hollywood history and how she was impacted by important events in American history, like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and anti-miscegenation laws.

There would be no Frederick Douglass without Anna Murray. After declaring she did not want her children's father to be a slave, Anna helped Douglass escape by disguising him as a sailor. She sold her personal belongings to finance his escape. They eventually reunited in New York, where they married. This clip describes Douglass’ work in a shipbuilding yard in Baltimore’s Fells Point as well as Anna Murray’s powerful influence on Douglass' self-emancipation.

Anne Bradstreet became a cultural icon for speaking out. Anne Hutchinson was banished.

Are these pieces translations, inventions, or interventions that add to a story that has been lost to us?

Drawing upon the online archives of the U.S. Holocaust Museum, this lesson helps students to put the events described by Anne Frank into historical perspective, and also serves as a broad overview of the Nazi conquest of Europe during World War II. After surveying the experiences of various countries under Nazi occupation, the lesson ends with activities related specifically to the Netherlands and Anne Frank.

This lesson concentrates on Anne Frank as a writer. After a look at Anne Frank the adolescent, and a consideration of how the experiences of growing up shaped her composition of the Diary, students explore some of the writing techniques Anne invented for herself and practice those techniques with material drawn from their own lives.

A challenging, fun card game that helps students learn about their rights under the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. The game offers three levels of play: Easy, Normal, Difficult.

This informational text explains that while both the Arctic and Antarctica are cold, Antarctica is much colder and drier - a polar desert. The text is written at a grade four through grade five reading level. This is a PDF containing the informational text and a glossary.

This is a phenomenon video for 3.2.4. Science Phenomena: 3rd grade - Ecosystem Change

In this problem students are comparing a very small quantity with a very large quantity using the metric system. The metric system is especially convenient when comparing measurements using scientific notations since different units within the system are related by powers of ten.

This Lesson Plan uses a Readers Theatre "The Ant and the Grasshopper" by Lois Walker to learn about protagonists and antagonists. Students compare similarities and differences between the two using a Venn diagram and describe the similarities and differences.