Learning Activities

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.

In this activity, students will compute real-world problems involving the volume of rectangular prisms. Students are provided models of rectangular prisms with fractional edge lengths and asked to compute how many smaller prims with a given measure are needed to pack the model. They will compute volume measurements using two different methods. Students are provided a link to an online rectangular prism calculator to check their calculations. An answer key with detailed explanations is provided for this activity.

How Much Does It Take? Student Response Page

For this activity, students will be put into groups. They will then read the poem "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll with their group. In groups, they will explore the poem vocally and physically. The students will perform their creation for the other students in the class.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This activity will teach or reinforce students how to format their text in a word processing program using font size, bold, underline, italics, and center while writing an acrostic poem.

This activity was created as a result of the DLCS COS Resource Development Summit.

In this learning activity, students will watch small video clips similar to text-to-speech technology. This video shows artificial intelligence-generated sound clips that have been matched to each short video clip. Students will try to guess which audio clip is real and which one has been artificially generated. 

Through this activity, students will analyze an assigned monologue by identifying character traits that are prominent in their monologues. The character traits will be labeled on a line drawing, or silhouette, of their character. Each character trait should be supported by textual evidence. The students will recall the character traits during rehearsal and/or performance, therefore, refining their artistic choices in a scripted work.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit

In this activity, students will explore Artificial Intelligence, develop their own definitions of what AI is, and share examples with their classmates via Note.ly. 

This activity was created as a result of the DLCS COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will create a map of a shopping excursion by solving systems of linear equations through graphing, substitution, or elimination. Students will then be able to determine the distance traveled through the mall using Pythagorean Theorem. Students will utilize previous grade level standards as a spiral review such as plotting coordinate pairs and using those pairs to find the distance between two points.

This activity is a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

Students will utilize the digital tool Google Slides to create a presentation about a technological advancement made in the United States since World War II and share their findings with their classmates.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this learning activity, students will watch a video Graphing on the Coordinate Plane from Simplify the Middle. Students will learn how to graph points as well as how to identify a point that has already been graphed. After watching the video, students will complete an exit ticket to demonstrate their understanding.

Students will work through the Scientific Method in this NASA STEM Engineering challenge. In this challenge, students will create a paper rocket that can be launched from a soda straw, and then modify the design to make the rocket fly farther. Students will collect and analyze their data after three trials. To complete this lesson, students will turn their data into a graph and answer reflection questions. 

The essential question being tested is, “How will changes to the rocket’s nose cone length affect the distance the rocket will travel?” Students will work in groups of four, with each person’s rocket having a different length nose cone (2cm-5cm). Once constructed, each student will launch their rocket three times and record it in the data table. These trials will then be averaged, graphed, and analyzed to correctly answer the essential question. 

This learning activity was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science (GEMS) Resource Development Project, in partnership with Dothan City Schools.

This activity assesses beginning computer users' understanding of the various computer hardware items and their purposes. Input and output devices are recognized by student groups as they compete in a contest to label the components. The activity follows a lesson by the teacher of basic hardware elements commonly associated with a desktop computer.

This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

Students will use inspiration from Jacob Lawrence and Aaron Douglas to create their own Harlem Renaissance-inspired artwork. 

This activity moves the student past the recognition of melodic characteristics and toward the composition of melodies. In this activity, the student will use graphic representations to generate and draft a simple melodic idea and then transfer that idea into traditional music notation.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This learning activity comes from The HappyEdugator. In this learning activity, the teacher shares the rules for using quotation marks when punctuating dialogue through a clever PowerPoint presentation. Students learn how to give their characters life. Then students choose from prompts and write a page of dialogue to show their ability to use quotation marks correctly.

This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

Students will create culturally inspired artwork to be displayed in a local business. For example, students learning Spanish will create unique works of art inspired by the culture of Mexico to be displayed in Mexican restaurants in their community. Students will also learn simple vocabulary and useful phrases to be able to communicate in the target language when visiting Mexican restaurants. Throughout the lesson, the students will be exposed to cognates and “borrowed words” to help them begin comparing and contrasting the target language with the English language.

This activity was created as a result of the World Languages COS Resource Development Summit.

This is a warm-up activity to prepare the students to begin to make physical choices and communicate physically, while thinking quickly.

"What are you doing" is a good introduction game to warm up the students physically.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

In this learning activity, students will be introduced to automation through automated grocery shopping. Students begin the activity by reviewing their most recent grocery shopping experience. Then they are invited to brainstorm ways they think the traditional grocery shopping experience would be different if it was automated. Students will watch a video about an automated grocery packing warehouse. Finally, they will describe aspects of automating the grocery shopping experience that increases efficiency. 

The students will create a postcard using textual evidence from a novel to create an image (setting) from the novel for the front.  The students will choose two main characters from the novel and write the message of the postcard from the point of view of one of the characters. They will use textual evidence to create a message from one main character to the other depicting the scene and describing the character's thoughts and feelings.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit

Many people find the hardest part of composing music is getting started. This lesson will describe an engaging activity where students will use a die to select the rhythmic values of their next musical composition. First, rhythmic values of notes/rests are assigned to the six numbers of a typical six-sided die. Next, the students will access a virtual die (or use a real one) and roll it. Then, they will draw the note/rest value on staff paper (or use digital notation software) using standard notation. The student or teacher will then decide on a time signature and the student will add bar lines to the string of note/rest values. Finally, the student will perform the rhythm on an instrument (musical instrument or body percussion).

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will watch a short video clip about how children were affected by the Great Depression. They will compare and contrast their lives to the lives of children in the 1930s. Students will pay close attention to how children's lives changed at school, at home, and in the workforce due to the high poverty and economic failure of the times. 

This resource was created in partnership with Dothan City Schools.

This activity will utilize the talking drawings strategy, in which the teacher will introduce the nitrogen cycle using an interactive presentation to explain this biogeochemical cycle in a pictorial format. As the teacher describes the process during the presentation, the students will create their own annotated diagram to model the nitrogen cycle.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

Students will view a video outlining ways to identify the security of a web page. Students will then seek online examples of secure and non-secure web pages, listing what information could be in danger should one choose to use a particular site.

This activity was created as a result of the DLCS COS Resource Development Summit.

Rhythm and melody are not the only elements in a successful music composition. The elements of tempo and dynamics contribute to the expressiveness of the work. In this activity, students will use dice to randomly select tempos and dynamic levels for melodies.  These melodies can be student-composed or pre-existing. First, tempo speeds and dynamic levels will be assigned to the six numbers on a typical six-side die. Next, the students will roll the die and practice their melody using the selected tempo and dynamic level. They will repeat this process several times and determine which tempo and dynamic level capture the expressive nature of their melody. Students will keep a written log of their attempts and produce musical performances.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

This activity is completed using Google Jamboard. The purpose of this assignment is to allow students to discover the affixes that affect the part of speech of a word. This would be a great opening lesson for a morphology lesson. 

This activity was created as part of the ALEX Resource Development Summit. 

The Illuminations tool, Product Game, is an excellent resource for students to gain a deeper understanding of factors and multiples. This tool challenges students to make offensive and defensive moves to obtain four products in a row by selecting factors ranging from one to nine. The challenge comes when one of the factors must be from your opponent’s last move. Students can either play against the computer or with a partner in their class.

GCF Venn Diagrams

Product Game Reflection

Students will annotate and analyze a secondary source about the industrialization, urbanization and cultural changes to Birmingham and Sylacauga, Alabama. Students will discuss in groups how the Avondale textile mills affected urban growth and the lives of mill employees. Groups will work together to summarize excerpts of the Encyclopedia of Alabama Avondale Mills article. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Essential Question: How does collaboration expand the creative process?

The students will investigate, plan, and make a mural. The students will collaborate on how to create a mural to be displayed within the school for all students and faculty to view as a way to show and demonstrate their school spirit.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Students will complete this activity using Google Jamboard. In this activity, students will make inferences about four related images. Students will use technology and visual literacy to make inferences throughout the completion of this assignment. This activity is intended as a formative assessment of students' knowledge and to build background knowledge for the ReadWorks passage "Top Crops."  

This resource was written as part of the ALEX Resource Development Summit. 

The students will explore improvised characters by participating in a party game.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit

In this activity, students will use De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, a problem-solving process, to discuss and evaluate the United States’ decision to use atomic weapons on Japan during World War II. This activity will allow students to think critically about this big decision while looking at it through a multitude of perspectives. By the end of this activity, the students will come to a decision as to what they would have done if they were to make this difficult decision.

This activity was created as a result of the DLCS COS Resource Development Summit.

This activity will allow students to explore and examine the efficiency of Henry Ford's assembly line in a way that is hands-on and interactive. Students will be competing against one another to see if it is more efficient to create paper airplanes individually or by using the assembly line method. 

In this learning activity from MathsLinks, students will complete a treasure-hunt activity centered on locating points on the number plane and identifying which quadrant they are in or points on the axes.

This activity allows students to analyze photographs and political cartoons from the early 20th century during the Women's Suffrage Movement. Students will participate in a gallery walk around the classroom and put a modern twist on their comments about the photos by creating a #hashtag statement.

This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

Students will show comprehension of key vocabulary by playing a digital learning game on Gimkit. This is a review of the 11 vocabulary terms from Welcome to the Underworld in a paired reading with Chapter 18 of The Lightning Thief. 

This resource was created in partnership with Dothan City Schools.