In this lesson, students will learn the importance of water and how people in other countries do not have clean water to drink. First, students will research water conservation within their own communities. They will discover how water is purified and the steps necessary to keep our water sources clean. The students will then conduct research on the people of Sudan and how difficult obtaining clean drinking water can be. Students will conclude this lesson by building their own homemade water filters. This lesson was developed by Christina Hartzell as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.

After this lesson students will be able to combine word choice and procedural writing; thus enhancing their overall writing skills.

Our ‘Local Read Aloud’ is a spin-off of The Global Read Aloud, created by Pernille Ripp.  The idea is that we select one book to read aloud to our students over a span of six weeks.  During our six weeks of reading we connect with other classrooms across the district and discuss, create, and connect with the book and our peers.  We can use a variety of tools to connect, and take as much, or as little time as we’d like.  The project is intended to be enjoyable and not stressful, and in my experience the students enjoy the read aloud component as much as the connections.

In this lesson, students write a persuasive letter home defending their decision either to settle in Utah and farm the land, or to go on to California to seek gold.

This task helps students summarize and review a period of history and can be used with any time and/or place. Students begin by recalling important events, particularly conflicts, within a particular time period and then compare, contrast, and evaluate those events with a focus on the impact of the events at the time in which they occurred and beyond. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This cross-curricular lesson combines Social Studies and Language Arts to demonstrate how the study of an historical topic can be developed to make learning nonfiction more exciting, and also improve fluency and comprehension. This project about Benjamin Franklin includes a series of lessons in which the students: 1) read for information from multiple texts, 2) write a script for a Readers Theater play, 3) read for expression and fluency by using their script, 4) enhance their reading with visual arts, and 5) demonstrate dramatic interpretation through role-play. This approach engages students throughout in active participation and collaboration. Included are many supporting resources, such as a read-aloud rubric, an audition sheet, and ideas for student assessment and reflection.

In this lesson, students read The Houdini Box by Brian Selznick. Students then follow the steps of the writing process to create a new ending for this book. Students gain experience brainstorming, drafting, editing, and polishing their writing. Because their story endings must flow well with the rest of the book, students must understand what the book is about. The goal is for them to understand what they’re reading and to demonstrate their knowledge of the book’s content and their own creativity through a writing piece.

This unit is designed for students to learn to make judgments and decisions based on facts, and to use informational and imaginative speech to present their personal viewpoint and opinion to others. Students experience, first hand, taxation without representation, and will develop a very real sense for the need to preserve the inherent freedoms of man. Using the American flag as a graphic organizer, students will develop a clear understanding of the actions and reactions of the American colonists to British rule and to our most important national holiday, the 4th of July. Historically significant events will be studied and organized through exploration of facts and opinions and interaction with informational text and class discussion.

In this lesson, students generate their own list of superheroes from popular culture. They work in groups to read selected books and develop a list of superhero traits from these titles. They then compare the book superheroes with their pop culture counterparts using the online Venn Diagram or the Venn Diagram mobile app. Finally, students explore individual superheroes from multiple perspectives, using a list of guiding questions that encourages them to consider how superheroes might differ depending on audience, gender, or setting.

This teacher's guide for Lion Island: Cuba's Warrior of Words by Margarita Engle contains information about the book, discussion questions and prompts, activity suggestions including a readers theater, and ways to connect the themes in the book to other subjects.

 After reading their Wonders anchor text, “Camping with the President”, students will be asked to choose a national park from those provided to research. Students will create a presentation of their choice (i.e Google slide, Jamboard, Flipgrid, Prezi) with visuals and informational facts. The goal of the students’ presentation is to persuade others to visit their national park.

This lesson begins with a concept development task (Taba) designed to elicit ideas about systems. The students then apply this thinking to the structure of the US government as they learn about the 3 branches of government and the system of checks and balances. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Students will learn how point of view can change and in what way point of view can be used in text to influence events.

Inclusion is an important concept in that it promotes equity and equality in the classroom. Students learn to work together despite their differences, capitalizing on their strengths and minimizing their deficits. Students within the school will be educated about the importance of inclusion, collaborating to complete activities and advocating for a school-wide inclusion program that involves all students, teachers and administrators.

Our ‘Local Read Aloud’ is a spin-off of The Global Read Aloud, created by Pernille Ripp.  The idea is that we select one book to read aloud to our students over a span of six weeks.  During our six weeks of reading we connect with other classrooms across the district and discuss, create, and connect with the book and our peers.  We can use a variety of tools to connect, and take as much, or as little time as we’d like. The project is intended to be enjoyable and not stressful, and in my experience the students enjoy the read aloud component as much as the connections.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 5th Grade ELA. 

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 5th Grade English Language Arts. 

This resource accompanies our Rethink 5th Grade ELA course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

This lesson encourages students to use common Greek and Latin affixes and roots to deconstruct and construct words. If they learn, for example, that micro means small and scope means see, they can deduce that a microscope is a device that enables an individual to see small objects. The students use the Morpheme Match-Ups handout and the Word Central website to engage in morphemic analysis of familiar and unfamiliar words. This lesson allows teachers to easily substitute their own affixes and roots for each activity.

Per the ReadWriteThink website: In this collaborative inquiry unit, the real gold is the inquiry skills and content area knowledge that students develop. The class works in small groups, each focusing on one aspect of the same big topic, such as the Gold Rush. After skimming related texts, the class brainstorms people, places and things associated with the topic and develops a list of five or six main subtopics. Students then work in small groups to research one of the subtopics, practicing specific research skills as they work. Finally, students choose an activity, such as an oral report, trivia game, or newspaper, to teach what they have learned to the rest of the class. Group accountability and individual responsibility are built in to this lesson process. While this unit uses the Gold Rush as an example, any event or geographical area could be substituted.