Practice evidence Work page where students will submit their evidence of work. This allows students to choose what they need to work on during independent work time to be most successful.  This is a great place for students to Use the BTC framework of Check your Understanding. In my classroom it is refered to as your menu evidence because students have a menu of choices to practice proficiency.  

This graphic organizer is used for students to take notes durig our Synthesis (Open Up Resources) or Consolidation (Building Thinking Classrooms) whole group instruction time. I usually spend 10-15 minutes on this piece in my classroom daily.  

In my classroom students work on VNPS (Vertical Non-Permanant surfaces) in groups of 3 daily. Watch this video to see what that looks like in my 7th grade math class.  

In our new episode of Homeroom we are joined by, Kerri Hopkins and Anne Dibble from the Beverly Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program to discuss how all teachers can bring more art into their classrooms. We learn how arts can improve academic performance across all subjects, the need to overcome our fears when expanding into the arts, and the different programs available to Utah schools through BTSALP.

Students choose a mode of expression—e.g., writing, art or storytelling—to share theme-related ideas and feelings with a “buddy” from outside the classroom.

This professional development article describes approaches to using social media in harnessing the power of Web 2.0 technologies to reinforce the connection between multimedia literacy and powerful content-area learning in grades K-5. The emphasis is on collaboration with the school librarian. The article appears in the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured around the seven essential principles of the climate sciences.

Ever since there have been babies, there has been a need to carry those babies. The cradleboard is art meets science and function for parents and children. This unique design was made for easy transport and care of a child.

A lesson plan that is about moms and babies look alike. (Going 3D with GRC)

We've all had that experience, the one where we start arguing with someone and find that we disagree about pretty much everything. When two people have radically different background beliefs (or worldviews), they often have difficulty finding any sort of common ground. In this lesson, students will learn to distinguish between the two different types of background beliefs: beliefs about matters of fact and beliefs about values. They will then go on to consider their most deeply held background beliefs, those that constitute their worldview. Students will work to go beyond specific arguments to consider the worldviews that might underlie different types of arguments.

The concept of close reading has not been without debate, and so I will first provide an overview of what close reading is and could mean for ELLs, including some definitions of close reading. Then I'll present the role of background knowledge, which is a major consideration with teaching ELLs close reading, and share some recommended resources.

Understanding the Patriot attitude toward the British monarchy is helpful in understanding the Founders' reluctance to have a strong executive under the Articles of Confederation as well as their desire to build in checks of executive power under the Constitution.

This is an introducation lesson plan to digital storytelling using short narratives as a base for the students' stories. The platform used in this story to create the digital stories is Adobe Spark but many other platforms could be used. It is targeted for 3rd graders. 

Step outside and discover the diversity of insect life in your neighborhood. Insects are the world’s most diverse group of living things, with over 950,000 identified species and counting. You might think that you’d need to travel to the Amazon to study insects, but they can be found practically everywhere—including right where you happen to be.

This video segment from Wild TV takes a closer look at backyard bugs, their habitat and characteristics.

A fun activity where kids can search outside for living matter to arrange and create different bug or insect species.

This is a fun activity to do to make prints using the leaves you can find in the area around you.

“After the sun has slipped away and the orange sky turns dark blue, fireflies put on a display like only they know how to do!” Go on a sparkly summertime adventure with Backyard Night Lights, the latest episode of YourClassical Storytime, featuring music by Edvard Grieg, illustrations by Mia Jennings and storytelling by Scott Blankenship.

Yogurt is the byproduct of hungry bacteria that digest the lactose in milk. You can make more yogurt just by feeding the bacteria more milk.

This task provides a real world context for interpreting and solving exponential equations. There are two solutions provided for part (a). The first solution demonstrates how to deduce the conclusion by thinking in terms of the functions and their rates of change. The second approach illustrates a rigorous algebraic demonstration that the two populations can never be equal.