Sentence fragments can't stand alone, because they do not express a complete thought. Run-ons put two complete sentences together in one sentence without separating them.
This resource allows students to practice identifying run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and complete sentences.
Students will locate new academic vocabulary terms in the paired reading Welcome to The Underworld after reading chapter 18 from The Lightning Thief. They will create a digital Frayer Model or handwrite the model in their composition notebooks for their selected top 3 most difficult vocabulary words from the list after they read the short story. As the students find the new vocabulary words, they will add them to the “Word Wall” for the week and write the words so all students can make sure they have the same vocabulary list.
This resource was created in partnership with Dothan City Schools.
This activity can be used in conjunction with the book, Freedom on the Menu by Carole Boston. Through the activity, students will gather information about the Greensboro Woolworth Lunch Counter sit-in and how it was related to the Civil Rights Movement. The activity includes links to other resources.
The Flip-a-Chip activity turns ordinary poker chips into a teaching tool, showing students how different affixes and roots can be joined to make words and then placed into a context-rich paragraph. Each set of chips contains two-word roots and two affixes that can be combined into four different words. For example, the prefixes im- and sup- might be written on the two sides of one poker chip, and the roots pose and press on the other chip. The four possible words (impose, impress, suppose, suppress ) are inserted into four blanks in a paragraph according to context clues. After practicing with both real and "virtual" chips (in the Flip-a-Chip online interactive), students work in pairs to create their own set of chips and corresponding paragraph. They exchange their packets to see whether the context clues are strong enough to enable classmates to fill in the blanks correctly.
Alphabats - Syllables is a super fun way for kids to practice phonemic awareness. Click on the bats’ bellies to hear the words, then match the words with the same number of syllables. Match 6 words correctly, then help the bats collect fireflies!
This activity is an introduction to Homer's "Odyssey". Students will be introduced to the great poet Homer and his epic poem The Odyssey. Students will have an understanding of King Odysseus and the battles he faced while trying to return home to his family. This activity will also introduce students to terms such as epic, epic poem, hubris, and tragic hero.
This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
Students will learn how to compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two texts on the same topic. Students will complete activities in which they compare and contrast texts and write about what they have learned.
This activity is designed to challenge students to find a claim and evidence within a graphic data set. Students will previously have learned about claims and evidence and will use this activity as a way to show that they can identify them within a set of data. Teachers are welcome to present any argument, but the chosen resource argues around cell phone use in school making it relatable to today's students.
This learning activity was created as a result of the ALEX - Alabama Virtual Library (AVL) Resource Development Summit.
In this classroom resource, students write free-verse acrostic poems about themselves using the letters of their names to begin each line. They then write an additional acrostic poem about something that is important to them. After proofreading, both poems are recopied or typed and illustrated and then mounted on construction paper for display. Several opportunities for sharing and peer review are incorporated. Acrostic poem interactive and ABC word list included in this resource.
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 explain how the sun illuminates the moon at night, serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept, or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson.
Word War is a spelling game that makes learning fun by allowing children to compete in real-time. Students will create a word and then hit the fire button to launch cannonballs at their opponent's tank. This interactive game is one of the most popular spelling games.
In this small group activity, the teacher will provide instruction on the sound-spelling correspondences for common consonant digraphs. The students will practice the sound-spelling correspondence for the consonant digraphs ch, sh, th, and wh. Students will sort and match pictures to the correct consonant digraph.
This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
Childhood is a time for laughing, learning, and playing with friends. Every day all around the world, children meet and make new friends. In this online book from the International Children's Digital Library, Monty the raccoon lies, breaking the trust his friend, Fritz the rabbit, had in him. This book highlights the importance of being a good friend and the consequences of lying.
See the supplemental materials for detailed teaching activities. The asset titled, "Forever Friendship—Making Friends Story Map" most closely aligns with the Alabama Course of Study.
In this activity, students will be introduced to actual historical people who were forced from their homes in Africa, as a part of the slave trade, and brought to Alabama on the ship Clotilda. Students will read a brief informational text and use the content to complete a K-W-L chart, mark the birth and death place of each enslaved person, and formulate questions about the course of the enslaved person’s life. Students will not be made aware of the enslaved status or the means they traveled to the United States during this activity, but they will begin to recognize, with guidance from the teacher, that Mobile, Alabama, along with other sites, was a center of the slave trade and is home to a port that was a stop on the Triangular Trade routes.
This unit is designed to help first and second-grade students learn new vocabulary by taking them on virtual adventures that replicate field trips. Students begin by accessing prior knowledge through an initial writing activity. Ensuing discussions, read-alouds, and the creation of a picture dictionary "take students to the moon," while further building their vocabulary. Students use an online Alphabet Organizer to complete a final writing activity, which they compare to the writing they did during the first session. Although this lesson focuses on the moon, its activities can be used with any content area topic.
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 geologic events that happen over a short period of time, 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.
Vocab Vik is one of the most unique online vocabulary games for kids. Due to its adventure-style of play, Vik can help children enjoy exploring the meanings of words. Watch out for enemies, though, they will do whatever they can to stop Vik in his tracks. Vocab Vik will even show your accuracy so that you can have an idea what your grade might be.
In this whole group activity, students will listen to a read aloud to illustrate using different voices to illustrate different points of view.
This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
Red Riding Hood sits down and takes you behind the scenes of the learning concepts in this modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. This video is designed for parents to watch without their children to learn valuable co-viewing tips and tricks such as discussion questions, pausing points, and questions to ask children during and after the fairy tale video.
Designed to meet Grade 3 English Language Arts Standards: Reading Literature: Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
You can access the story at the following location: Little Red Riding Hood Storybook Text
Students will learn to make inferences based on evidence and prior knowledge about their teacher (by looking at objects), classmates (by viewing drawings or PowerPoint), and a reading passage.
This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.
Prior to this activity, students will have defined and identified responsible and ethical research practices. In this activity, students will use information gathered from web research to contribute to a class checklist used to ensure students use responsible and ethical practices when writing. The teacher may choose to add to this checklist using subsequent lessons related to this standard.
In this unit, students tell their own stories and explore the stories of other Americans. Hearing and telling these stories helps students realize that social studies is not simply the study of history, but an exploration of real people and their lives. Students begin by telling stories about their personal experiences. They then explore the character traits that promote democratic ideals and tell stories about family members who exemplify these traits. Finally, they conduct research and share stories about famous Americans. Practiced skills include reading, researching, visually representing, writing, and presenting.
The teacher will present two pieces of informational text from the website, ReadWorks. Students will interact with these non-fiction texts by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the articles as an assessment. This learning activity will describe two different threatened species, one plant, and one animal species, and explain how changes in the species' ecosystem led to a population shift.
In this lesson, the students will learn about some different figures of speech and expressions in the English language. A figure of speech is when we use words creatively in a way that is a little different from what the words mean normally. Expressions like metaphors and similes are used to add rhetorical force to the spoken or written language. This resource offers videos, games, and worksheets to help further understand the concept taught in this lesson.
In this activity, the student will evaluate the author's rhetorical style in two paragraphs to interpret the author's intended answer to the final question of the text: Which came out of the door, the lady, or the tiger? Students will work in groups to complete t-charts and discussion questions to interpret the character's reaction to two scenarios stated in the text.
This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
Pronoun case is determined by how we use the pronoun in a sentence. There are three ways: subjective, when the pronoun does something; objective, when something is done to our pronoun; and possessive when our pronoun possesses something.
This lesson is a small group phonics lesson. Using Sheep in a Jeep students will learn that ee says /e/. Students will read and write long e words and read the story Sheep in a Jeep.
After students have defined and identified responsible and ethical research practices as well as strategies for writing clear, coherent products suitable for audience and purpose, they will utilize these practices and strategies to write their own paragraphs. In this activity, students will complete the drafting steps in this process. Using a guide, they will write the first and second drafts of a paragraph, stopping between drafts to consider best research and writing practices.
In this lesson, students access their own knowledge of characters from a variety of texts to make comparisons between the familiar concepts of hero and villain and the new concept of the Byronic hero, a term coined from Lord Byron and his writings in the 19th century. They first list heroes and villains with which they are familiar and discuss any examples that may blur the lines between the two. Using Stephenie Meyer's Twilight and the character Edward Cullen, students identify the characteristics of the Byronic hero in a Venn diagram and diagram other characters with these traits. Students then choose a project—an expository essay, photo collage, or book cover—to extend their understanding of this complex and compelling character type.
This lesson uses Edward Cullen as an example, but it may be adapted to focus on any Byronic hero that would be appropriate for your classroom.
In this 3-5 lesson, students will explore jazz music and dance, then write a jazz-inspired cinquain poem. They will build their background on the history of jazz and its use of improvisation to demonstrate jazz dance movements.
In this activity, the students will be introduced to antonyms, synonyms, and homonyms using examples on index cards. Teaching students to read and write often involves teaching them about how language works in general. This lesson focuses on strategies you can use for teaching synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms. Giving students an understanding of the aforementioned phenomena leads to better comprehension, better spelling, and more expressive writing.
This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
In this activity, students will complete a quick write and cloze notes to prepare to analyze how author James Hurst uses imagery in the short fiction piece "The Scarlet Ibis" to create meaning in the piece as a whole.
This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
In this lesson, students will explore the themes of grief and loss in William Shakespeare's Hamlet using a video from Shakespeare Uncovered. (This lesson is best used during a reading of Hamlet.)
This lesson looks at the natural resources that drew settlers to Alabama. Students will explore the 1818 letter from Joseph Noble to his friend, Samuel B. Bidgood, describing the town at Tuscaloosa Falls. Students will explain ideas within this historical text based on specific information presented in this primary source.
Follow-up lesson - Alabama: A Boundless Field of Speculation
This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
Site or sight Write or right? Because there are many words in the English language that sound the same but are spelled differently, students may struggle to write the right spelling for certain words. These word types known to complicate spelling and vocabulary are called homophones. An integral part of students' vocabulary and spelling development is to learn and understand the meaning of these homophones. In this minilesson, students begin by generating a list of homophones with which they are familiar with. Students then listen to a song, identify homophones in the song, and discuss their meaning and spelling. Finally, student groups create a skit that depicts the meaning of a homophone. As the group performs the skit, their classmates attempt to guess the homophone that is on display. Groups finish the lesson by creating a comic strip version of their skit to be compiled into a class "homophone book."
