A Reader’s Survival Guide: Connecting and Synthesizing Ideas in Nonfiction Texts
This lesson is designed to teach students to synthesize and make connections between ideas within a text and with previous texts students have read.
Birthday Conundrum
Students will work together to determine the amount of each snack item it will take to feed the guests at a birthday party using different methods of multiplication representation.
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Just Graph It!
Students will be involved in a problem solving lesson in which they are to visually represent previously collected survey data.
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Analyzing Data Using a Dot Plot
Students will construct a dot plot using data collected on the faces of a cube after it is rolled. Students will then use a key to change the data to represent a larger population.
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Adventures in Inferring
Students will infer the message the author is trying to convey using schema and evidence from the text. Readers use this strategy, known as making inferences, to think about what they are reading.
Students progress from a surface-level understanding of text to a deeper understanding by processing and expressing details and examples to support their understanding of observations through background knowledge and textual evidence.
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Modeling and Solving Two-Step Equations
Students will use various materials to create models of two-step equations. Then, they will take an equation, create their own model, and solve for the variable from the model.
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Equations and Inequalities
Using a graphic organizer, students will write and solve a one-variable, two-step equation using the distributive property. They also will draw a picture and justify their solution.
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Does Paper Have Volume?
Students will be involved in a problem-solving lesson to determine if paper has volume, find the volume of a piece of paper and a ream of paper, and determine how many pieces of paper will fit inside their classroom.
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Discovering the Ratio of Pi
Students will discover the ratio of pi by relating the circumference to the diameter of various circles. Students will use this ratio to approximate the formulas for circumference.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
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Volume of Triangular Prisms
Students will use hands-on manipulatives to discover the connection between the shape of the base and the height to determine the volume of a prism.
DNA Sequencing
In this lesson, students will investigate how gene expression is a regulated process controlled by DNA and the interpretations of codons through translation.
Convergent Plate Boundaries
Students will design and test models that will identify crustal features formed by convergent plate boundaries.
Full Speed Ahead
Students will use hover pucks to measure speed over a distance of six meters. Once speed has been calculated, students will determine velocity using the same data. Finally, students will be able to label all points of acceleration.
Building a Watershed
Students will model the effects of human activity on watersheds.
It’s All About the Bend, No Breaking
Students will experiment with choosing tools to measure around a previously created pet habitat in preparation for choosing appropriately sized food bowls. Students will use a graphic organizer to record tools chosen and to explain why those tools were or were not a good choice for continuous measurement.
Uses of Energy Lab
Students will rotate through lab stations equipped with objects and videos as they explore the uses and conversion of five different types of energy.
Going on an Expedition
Students observe how dunes and canyons are created through agents of erosion by weathering and erosion.
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Motion Pictures
In this lesson, students will be introduced to the concept of motion representation using distance vs. time graphs. Students will recognize labeling of axes, steepness related to speed, horizontal lines as non-motion, and downward slope as return to origin.
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Earth: A Tilted Affair
After a brief review of direct and indirect sunlight, students will arrange heat maps and globes around a drawing of the Sun based on the tilt of Earth and how it affects Earth’s temperature.
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Area of Composite Figures
Students will progress through performance tasks to strengthen their understanding of composite figures. During the performance tasks, students will refer to blueprints to find missing dimensions and solve for composite area.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
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