Project:
You are a teenager with an amazing idea for a new documentary that you are sure everyone will want to see! You just know that if this documentary gets picked up you will hit the big time. In order for this documentary to hit the big screen, you first have to pitch it to a big time Executive Director, and convince him/her that this film is worth the money.

For this assignment, students were asked a series of open-ended questions relating to the Civil Rights Movement. Students scanned QR Codes, which took them directly to the assignment. The prompts allowed students to think critically, while investigating what the Civil Rights Movement was, and predict how the events in To Kill a Mockingbird would have been different if the Civil Rights Movement had occurred prior to the setting of the book.  While researching, students were only allowed to use Sweet Search, a site that searches for only credible sources. Questions included: Who was Martin Luther King Jr? What was the Civil Rights Movement? Using specific examples from To Kill a Mockingbird, consider how the portrayal and treatment of African American people may have been different if the Civil Rights Movement had occurred before the events in the novel took place. 

In this writing mini unit we developed our Persuasive Writing Skills moving towards being able to write a
Before
- Discussion of prior knowledge of persuasive writing
During
- Watched a SMART exchange video on persuasive writing
- Reviewed understanding of and practiced doing some persuasive exercises
- Read various examples of persuasive writing and noted the differences and similarities. (Also, noting the variety of writing dress-ups; so that we can hear the persuasive words.)
- Co-constructed criteria for the writing process of persuasive writing.
- Students created their own persuasive paragraph writing examples.
- Learned how to improve so the writing incorporated the specific writing strategy and dress-ups so that the listener, reader could hear the conviction of being persuaded.
- Students then chose one of their samples to create a power point presentation for class.
After
- Analyzed the writing using the criteria together as a class. Using the feedback we will created another piece of persuasive writing. The final goal: moving towards the five paragraph essay process/product.

This activity was designed to be used in the ELA B30 Distance Learning Course on Moodle. It could easily be adapted to use within a face-to-face classroom. The ability for students to assess their own writing and reflect on their strengths and weaknesses is an important component of the ELA B30 course. Currently, the AR activities are embedded within the section work in the course but many students miss doing these reflections or don’t see the connections between assessing their responses and how this leads to better learning in the future. The new assessment and reflection package is designed to help students set goals that they wish to work towards in ELA B30 and have them measure how well they are achieving those goals.

I have been doing expert writing with the older students for a few years now as an independent English Language Arts project while I am working with the younger students. However, I have been disappointed with the variety and creativity in presentations. I give them a list of possible formats and they choose the topic they are interested in researching and how they want to present what they have learned. Only 1 or 2 have been brave enough to deviate from the traditional written report, or poster. My plan was to do a variety of creativity projects from the Destination Imagination series to foster creativity and get them in the right frame of mind before doing their projects. I insisted that they had to choose a format other than a written report, or poster.

Encyclopedia Britannica Online is a fact-checked online encyclopedia with hundreds of thousands of objective articles, biographies, and videos. Students from Prekindergarten to Grade 12 can access age-appropriate, trustworthy content.

Throughout the year I have used this as a review for the end of each unit. I create five or six critical thinking questions that apply what we have been learning about. I print them on color paper and spread them around the room. I pair the students up, and have they move about the room solving the questions. I only have ten students in my class so I’m fortunate to have only five pairs at a time. I usually pair them up as sort of a strong and weak combination. This is an attempt to have them collaborate on the problems while using critical thinking.

The Explora database for schools and public libraries provides a reliable source of information to complete homework and research projects and deliver robust school curricula.

Explore History Portal provides primary source materials designed to help students and researchers examine literary, political, and social culture of the last 500 years and develop a more meaningful understanding of how history continues to impact the world today.

MAKE CURRICULUM COME ALIVE
DESIGN IN AUGMENTED REALITY AND SHARE YOUR CREATIONS.

You are able to sign up for a free teacher account (with limited use) but there are also full accounts available for a cost (9.99 a month or 2-3 dollars a student depending on how you sign up).

Social injustice occurs every day all over the world. In this lesson, students research a few historical examples of social injustice, including the Holocaust, the Trail of Tears, and Japanese internment.

Challenge first graders with math problems that will help them master first-grade math skills! In first grade, students learn about money, time, measurements, and patterns. Building a solid number sense is important for students in this age range. First graders learn to recognize patterns and sort objects by color, shape, and function. They will also learn to recognize and differentiate between two-dimensional and three-dimensional geometric shapes like squares, triangles, cones, and cylinders. By the end of first grade, students should be able to count to one hundred by ones, twos, fives, and tens. They will also be introduced to the concepts of more and less, and have an opportunity to work with simple graphs.

Now that your child has mastered numbers and counting, it's time to take things to the next level with our first-grade math worksheets! Keep students' math minds sharp with daily first-grade math and critical thinking practice worksheets as well as daily homework and practice pages. Weekly word problems, first-grade algebra and geometry, counting and comparing numbers, and introduction to addition are just some of the engaging, no-prep first-grade math worksheets available on this page.

Ditch That Textbook has tons of great ideas to support teachers in their busy classrooms. One of the many resources offered are FREE templates that will save time and engage students in their learning.To access these free templates (Google Slides and PowerPoint) head on over to  https://ditchthattextbook.com/resources/templates or check out the individual sections included in this lesson. 

Different activities connect to different outcome in Physical Science 20 and Physics 30.
To give students a chance to use their creative and critical thinking skills in a variety of physics related challenges.
Students track their activities and do reflections on their own learning. (See sheet at bottom)
Students are given the opportunity to connect to their Fun Physic Friday challenges to the curriculum goals and aims dependent on the course.

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Gale Academic OneFile Select is a cross-disciplinary research database (science, literature, history, etc.). Students can search over 5,000 journals, magazines and newspapers. The database also includes multimedia content.

General OneFile is a cross-disciplinary research database (science, literature, history, etc.). Access to more than 14,000 periodicals, newspapers, reference books, and multimedia sources, along with over 163,000 images, 6,400 audio files, and 1.3 million videos.

High School Edition is designed for middle- and high-school students and provides access to age-appropriate, authoritative digital content for classroom assignments. Learners can research magazines, journals, newspapers, and reference books covering a wide range of subjects, from science, history, and literature to political science, sports, and environmental studies.

Gale in Context: Elementary is a research database for Kindergarten to Grade 5 students. This resource is a credible, reliable and ad-free information source.  Students, teachers and parents will find age-appropriate videos, images, biographies, magazine and newspaper articles on popular topics.

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