Search ALEX...

Students watch how a Chinese watchdog group is protecting the environment with this video and educational resources from PBS NewsHour from December 7, 2015. After, students read an informational text related to the video and respond to open-ended questions. This resource provides students with the opportunity to make inferences, summarize, and cite what the text says explicitly. The resource also includes domain-specific vocabulary. 

In this unit, students will use thematically related texts, organized from least to the most complex, to gather a word bank of supporting details and content vocabulary about a concept. Then they use these words as a basis for writing acrostic poems, which support organization of information around a central idea, as the lines of an acrostic poem are held together by the topic or main idea spelled vertically.

The teacher will present an informational fiction text from the website, ReadWorks. The students and teacher can interact with this non-fiction text by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the article as an assessment. This learning activity would be useful to introduce students to the concept parents and their offspring have similarities and differences in their appearance.

Finding the main idea of a paragraph is an important skill for elementary students. Being able to do so, shows that children are progressing beyond simple fluency and beginning to read for understanding. This video will help students find the main idea of a paragraph. The learning resource also has a quiz, worksheet, and game available to check for understanding.

Students identify social, cultural, and historical perspectives regarding the importance of dogs in the past and present. They write and illustrate list poems that incorporate each perspective.

Students watch two segments about dogs to identify social, cultural, and historical perspectives regarding their importance in the world in the past and in the present. After noting examples of each point of view, students write and illustrate list poems that incorporate each perspective.

This resource provides instruction and practice comparing historical and cultural perspectives.

This unit exposes students to a variety of alphabet books to increase their knowledge and understanding of the genre. Students are involved in an interactive read-aloud of A My Name is Alice by Jane Bayers, during which they identify and examine the characteristics of alphabet books. Students then engage in shared writing to create a class alphabet book. After completing the class book, they work in small groups using technology to write their own alphabet books. These books are later shared with an audience, giving an authentic purpose to the writing experience.

The teacher will present an informational text from the website, ReadWorks. The students and teacher can interact with this non-fiction text by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the article as an assessment. This learning activity can be used to provide information regarding the varying habitats of animals, serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept, or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson. This learning activity includes a StepRead: StepReads are less complex versions of the original article. StepRead1 (SR1) is less complex than the original article, and StepRead2 (SR2) is less complex than SR1. This will allow the teacher to use this learning activity with students of varying ability levels.

Help Radly journey through 10 sci-fi levels of action. Find the barrel that matches the correct answer and blast it with your ray gun. Be careful, though, all kinds of alien bats and drones will try to stop you on your way. Pick from 7 different skills ranging from grades second through sixth in one of our fantastic robot games for kids. Skills include vocabulary, synonyms, antonyms, cause and effect, making inferences, and context clues.

2018 Arkansas Teacher of the Year, Randi House, shares the story “Little Red Riding Hood” and helps students determine the main and supporting characters, the setting of the story, the problem the main character faces, and the solution to the problem. Accompanying this video are discussion questions that will guide students to use what they have learned and apply those skills to another well-known story, “Rumpelstiltskin.”

This resource will support students as they identify the setting and characters in a story.

Students in a class form a type of community, and members must get to know one another for that community to thrive. When students and teachers share their backgrounds and interests early in the year, they develop a base for understanding that will support effective teaching and learning throughout the months that follow. This unit, which is designed for the first few weeks of school, helps build a classroom community. Students begin with a discussion about community and what it means to be part of a community. They then prepare interview questions to ask a classmate about their lives. Students interview a fellow classmate to compile biographical data about him or her and use a Web tool called Bio-Cube to organize the material. In a culminating activity, students use their completed Bio-Cube to introduce their partner to the class.

The teacher will present an informational text from the website, ReadWorks. The students and teacher can interact with this non-fiction text by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the article as an assessment. This learning activity will describe how genetic mutations in organisms can lead to beneficial effects in the structure of the organism. This learning activity includes a StepRead: StepReads are less complex versions of the original article. StepRead1 (SR1) is less complex than the original article, and StepRead2 (SR2) is less complex than SR1. This will allow the teacher to use this learning activity with students of varying ability levels.

In this classroom resource, students will learn about sentences.  A sentence is a set of words that makes complete sense and consists of a subject, a predicate, and a verb. A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause. A compound sentence consists of two independent clauses. A complex sentence consists of an independent clause joined by one or more dependent clauses. This resource offers videos, games, and worksheets to help further understand the concept taught in this lesson.

This video resource from Shakespeare Uncovered explores the character of Puck (also known as Robin Goodfellow) and how he impacts the play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Using video, graphic organizers, and text-dependent discussion questions, students will learn the origins of Puck while examining different interpretations of the character and how he moves the plot forward.

This resource guides students as they analyze the character of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In this lesson, students select a book to read based only on its cover art. They then analyze why the art attracted them and anticipate what the book may be about before examining the rest of the information found on the book cover. After reading the book, they reexamine the book cover to determine whether, in their opinion, it conveys the key elements of the book. Finally, students use an interactive tool to redesign the book cover.

Students will identify repetition in works of art.  They will write a poem using repetition.  They will create a border using a repetitive pattern.  Assessment rubric, letter to parents, examples of artwork, and lesson plan included in PDF.  

In this media collection, students explore the use of supernatural elements within William Shakespeare’s plays, focusing particularly on Macbeth, Hamlet, and The Tempest. Students examine supernatural beliefs during the 16th and 17th centuries, and they also identify how supernatural elements drive the plot of many of Shakespeare’s plays.

Be sure to read the Discussion Questions, along with the other materials under the Support Materials for Use with Students section to fully teach the standard.

Before there were weather tools, people looked to the sky, plants, and animals for hints about what the weather would do. To remember these indicators, people coined weather sayings. But are these sayings true and reliable? This lesson explores the truth and reliability of weather-related sayings, such as, “Mare's tails and mackerel scales make tall ships take in their sails.” Students brainstorm weather sayings and then investigate the accuracy and origins of the sayings in predicting the weather, using print and online resources in their research. Next, students write about and illustrate their weather sayings and then share their results with their classmates. Finally, students discuss skepticism and when it may be a good response to information that is presented to them as fact.

Students will listen to and analyze music composed for cartoons.  They will evaluate the mood of the music.  Working in groups of four, students will write a storyline for a cartoon while listening to Anxiety Montage by Carl Stallings.  

Verbal moods indicate a state of being or reality. There are several types: indicative, the most common where the state of being is a pure fact; interrogative, which asks a question; and imperative, which is a command. It is important to remember that it is not the verb that determines the mood but the way it's used in the sentence. This resource provides instruction and practice with forming and using verbs in context in the indicative, imperative, interrogative, conditional, and subjunctive moods.

Together, students and teacher use charts and Venn diagrams to brainstorm and organize similarities and differences between two objects. The teacher then models the beginning of the first draft, inviting students to help rephrase, clarify, and revise as the draft is written. Finally, students take what they have learned to complete the draft independently.