Let's Analyze and Compute Fractions!
Students will compare fractions with unlike denominators to determine whether a given answer to a real-world problem is correct using context and computational skills.
Retelling with Confidence
Students learn how to use the pictures in their books to retell a story in sequence. The teacher models how to use the pictures to retell the story Stellaluna by Janell Cannon. The students and teacher complete a graphic organizer using picture representations from the book. The graphic organizer is a frame for all the elements of a strong retell and requires students to include new vocabulary; the characters and setting; and the beginning, middle, and end of the book, Stellaluna. Students will apply the picture retell strategy by completing a graphic organizer for their own book and retelling the story to peers and their teacher.
2 Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment: Administering and Interpreting Results
This binder details how to score and interpret the results of the Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA). This course is Unit 4 of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy (TALA). These materials are available for view only; no credit or certificate is provided.
Lines of Symmetry
Students will work collaboratively with a partner to discover what is a line of symmetry.
Fractions with Multi-Step Problems
Students will be able to work collaboratively while baking to find the least common multiples of fractions with unlike denominators and create equivalent fractions, then add or subtract.
Circuit Designers
Students will work in small groups of two to three on a structured challenge around circuits which includes requirements such as including using a switch or a conductor. They will then use that knowledge to work on a collaborative challenge to solve a relevant problem related to elephant poaching. Students will create a containment system that will have an alarm system, a lighting system, and a way to pass through. Finally, they will review the other projects and discuss similarities and differences in the design.
Analyzing the Text for Summary and Connections
Students will critically think and communicate; they will summarize a text to understand and make connections to other texts, themselves, and the world.
Revising for Coherence
Students will use a checklist to peer edit a composition. They will check for coherence through the proper use of transition words and conjunctions.
Communication in Space
Students will work in cooperative groups to create an accurate arrangement of mirrors that work together to relay a laser beam from a Mars space station to Earth’s Mission Control, which will model utilizing satellites in space for communication, an accommodation necessary for manned space exploration.
Mission Possible—The Hierarchy of Polygons
The students participated in three missions that required them to independently classify two-dimensional quadrilaterals in a hierarchy of sets and subsets using a graphic organizer based on their attributes and properties.
Figuring out Figurative Language
Students will work collaboratively to infer the implied meaning of a metaphor used in a poem. Students will complete a graphic organizer in which they discuss with their peers the two items being compared in the metaphor, write and illustrate the literal meaning of each word being compared, and use this information to infer the implied meaning of the metaphor. The lesson has a strong focus on vocabulary development and is designed with English learners (ELs) in mind.
Which Organizational Pattern Is It?
Students will read a text, identify its organizational pattern, highlight signal words, create a visual representation/graphic organizer, and present to the class.
Composing Like Beethoven
Students will review music vocabulary, name notes using flashcards, and create and present a 4/4 composition using rhythm sticks and other available instruments.
Who Ran the Farthest?
Students determine by using fractions which fourth-grade teacher ran the farthest.
When Life Gives You Lemons
Students create input-output tables to find numerical patterns and relationships in the real world through the process of making lemonade.
Composing and Decomposing a Number
In this lesson, students will learn how to compose a number with base 10 blocks, decompose a ten, and then compose the same number a different way.
Flying High with Inferences
In this lesson, students integrate background knowledge and textual clues to respond to inferential questions that were generated by the students themselves. The lesson utilizes instructional strategies that have been identified as best practice for teaching inference such as: generating questions, identifying keywords, and activating prior knowledge. Additionally, the lesson is designed to support English learners and utilizes visuals, graphic organizers, sentence frames, and cooperative learning.
Hooked on Inferring
In this lesson, students use text evidence and schema to create an inference. Students read informational text and practice inferring with varying levels of support.
Courts of Measure
Students will use measurement tools to measure the dimensions of the basketball court and calculate the area of the court.
Stellar Sentences
Students will read a group of words, arrange them to make sense as a complete thought, and recognize and use capitalization at the beginning and a period as the ending punctuation mark.