Great Teaching Ideas

What is the Great Teaching Ideas Program?

The Great Teaching Ideas program is a free resource for Missouri Teachers providing useful lesson plans and teaching activities. Missouri teachers submit their own units and lessons to SuccessLink via an online submission form. These lessons are then reviewed by curriculum specialist. Approved lessons are posted on the SuccessLink Web site for all teachers to freely print and use with their own curriculum. Lessons are aligned to the Missouri Show Me Standards as well as the new Missouri Grade Level Expectations, content ranges from kindergarten through twelfth grade in all subjects.

The SuccessLink Web site has a database of over 2000 lessons. Three incentive programs encourage submission of lessons. These are graduate credit courses, an approved Career Ladder activity and a monthly cash award program.

Showcase Lessons for the month of November 2008 .

 This month we will feature lessons in honor of Thanksgiving.

See the Showcase Archive

• First Thanksgiving Feast

  Students research the first Thanksgiving feast:
  1. Facts and myths.
  2. What the menu consisted of.
  3. The origin of the cornucopia.

• Over the River and Far Away

  Students read the poem "Over the River and Through the Woods," summarize it, and draw conclusions (includes a PowerPoint presentation)--Thanksgiving, poetry

• Thanksgiving

  Students will be reading, writing, collecting data, and experiencing hands-on activities to learn important things from our Nation's history, in particular Thanksgiving.

• Thanksgiving Food Guide Pyramid

  Students will utilize nutritional information and recognize the food guide pyramid.

• Learning Through Native American Folktales

  This unit crosses the curriculum with a hands-on approach to learn about Native American folktales.

• Native Americans

  Five lessons demonstrating knowledge learned from a bigger Native American unit, the lessons on the Hopi and Iroquois tribes.

• Tipi Math

  Through an integrated curriculum, students will research, design, build, and decorate accurately a scale model of a Plains Indian tipi.

• Native American Artifacts

  Students create an Indian artifact and write a report detailing its history -- Archaeology

• Study of Native Americans: Mythology, Literature and Culture

  Students will research various aspects of Native American mythology and conduct presentations with visual aids to share the information learned.