Learning Activities

In this activity, students will demonstrate knowledge of the features of a fairy tale.  Students will listen to the story The Three Little Pigs by James Marshall.   After listening to the story, students will apply knowledge of fairy tale features using a fairy tale checklist and a graphic organizer.

This learning activity was created as a result of the ALEX - Alabama Virtual Library (AVL) Resource Development Summit.

In this activity, students have to use their knowledge of place value to determine the numbers being compared. Then, students will compare the numbers using the correct comparison symbol of <, >, or =.

In this activity, students will expand on their Civil War background to research different concepts, people, places, and materials of the Civil War. The students will use a guide to help them research one item per letter of the alphabet related to the Civil War. 

This resource was created in partnership with Dothan City Schools.

In this activity, students will use their knowledge of internal conflict to analyze a piece of short fiction and how the author uses those literary devices to convey meaning as a whole.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit. 

In this free interactive math learning activity from Math is Fun, students learn to gain an understanding of exponents as repeated multiplication by “playing” with an interactive exponent tool.

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

In this whole group activity, the teacher will provide instruction on identifying the key elements in a familiar fairy tale (characters, setting, and plot). The students will complete a story map graphic organizer to identify key elements and delineate the plot.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

This activity will guide students through a discussion of why, how and when passwords are used to protect individual privacy, how to create strong passwords, and who to share passwords with. The activity will also show students how they can adjust their privacy settings on their online accounts.  After the presentation and discussion, students will practice what they have learned by playing “InterLand,” an online game resource that is part of the “Be Internet Awesome with Google” digital citizenship curriculum, designed for students in grades 3-6. The “Tower of Treasure” learning game focuses on protecting privacy and creating strong passwords.

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

This activity allows students to describe the world in spatial terms using maps by becoming a part of geography. The students will actually become coordinates on a map that will help them master latitude, longitude, and cardinal directions. 

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

This lesson will connect students with actual artists from Nicaragua while introducing the topic of fair-trade, non-profit organizations as well as opening up the classroom for a discussion on the culture of Central America. It is best to partner this lesson with your school’s Pulsera Project sale, but all resources are available whether or not the sale occurs at your school. You can start the completely free service-learning project by visiting: http://www.pulseraproject.org/getinvolved. The lesson is best for a block schedule or consider providing extended time depending on class make-up/target language reading level of students.

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

In this activity, students will use the preterit tense to tell others about things that have happened in their past. Using the free online tool provided by Read Write Think, students can easily create a graphically appealing timeline that features photos and vocabulary relevant to their individual lives.

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

After reading the Balcony Scene (Act II, Scene ii) of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, students view and analyze multiple interpretations of the key scene in different artistic mediums: a poem, a painting, and a movie clip. Students compare and contrast the various representations of Shakespeare's original scene by utilizing LucidChart's Venn Diagram tool. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This activity will teach and or reinforce students how to format their text in a word processing program using font size, bold, underline, italics, color, and center. The activity will also introduce or reinforce inserting images.

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

Students will identify words that use one sound/syllable and two sounds/syllables.  Students will compose 8 beat rhythm patterns using random items from a box.  The students will have a fun time making silly rhythm patterns with their random items.

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

This virtual manipulative can be used to help students visualize the multiplication of two fractions using an area model. This interactive manipulative can help improve students' spatial skills and build conceptual understanding of fraction multiplication. 

This learning activity was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science University, GEMS-U Project.

Students will silently view and read a primary document that shows the U.S. arrival sites of enslaved Africans from the 16th through the 19th century and features accompanying informational text. The teacher will read the text of the document aloud.  Students will break into groups and read the same text orally with accuracy, automaticity, appropriate prosody or expression, purpose, and understanding, self-correcting, and rereading as necessary. After reading the document in these three ways, students will write a brief response identifying centers of slave trade in the Continental U.S., specifically noting Alabama as one of those centers, and identifying an important date in the history of the slave trade that they will add to a timeline.

This learning activity will be used during a lesson on Scalar Multiplication. Students will explore how to multiply a scalar into matrices in order to produce new matrices. The teacher will use the Scalar Multiplication Lesson Practice to cover the “I Do” and “We Do” portions of the lesson to check for lesson objective comprehension. 

The Bird Beak Lab will provide students with a hands-on discovery experience into how bird beaks are adapted based on their diet. This activity is run in station format, and groups will rotate between each of the five stations. At each station, students will use tools meant to represent the different styles of bird beaks: tweezers, pliers, eye dropper, spoon, and strainer. As students rotate, they will encounter different food items to eat: nectar, sunflower seeds, plants, fish, bugs, and worms. The challenge of this activity is to identify which beak style works best for which food source. 

This 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 provides a teacher-made Google Slides document with a link to an episode of the Smithsonian's Sidedoor Podcast called "The Worst Video Game Ever." With this high-interest topic and student-friendly format, students will practice active listening skills to answer questions about the podcast. This resource can be used in a whole group, small group, or individual setting or as at-home practice. 

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

In this activity, students will investigate patterns and relationships related to the interior and exterior angles of polygons.  Students will also use Geogebra to construct regular and irregular polygons. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

Down on the Farm is a two-part VEX IQ learning activity that provides a hands-on exploration into the impact of computing and simulations on human tasks and machinery. Learners will assemble VEX IQ clawbots to use in a programming activity and a simulation activity based on agricultural tasks.

This activity was demonstrated during the Exploring Today's Classroom (ETC) Summit.

This learning activity will be used during a lesson on Algebraic Expressions. Students will work in pairs to translate between words, tables, symbols, and area representation of algebraic expressions.

This learning activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

This learning activity should be used as an explore/explain activity for students to apply their narrative writing skills and practice differentiating between narrative and expository writing.  The students will practice these skills through correspondence with a publisher and by writing a narrative of a single scene from a hero's journey.  By including the correspondence aspect of the activity, students will be able to show their ability to differentiate between narrative and expository writing.  By limiting the students to writing a single narrative scene, they will be able to more easily demonstrate their ability to write narratives that show not tell.  This should combat some of the summaries that often results when students try to tell an entire story.  Students will need to have prior knowledge concerning the difference between narrative and expository writing and the difference between a single scene in a story and an entire story.  They will also need to be familiar with the basic concepts of letter writing, the hero's journey motif, and the choices authors must make in terms of point of view, showing not telling, and dialogue.  Finally, the students will be presented with My Hero's Journey Narrative Correspondence, a letter between the students and an editor from a publishing company interested in publishing their work. The students will write a single-scene narrative with a clear beginning, middle, and end using a consistent point of view that paints a picture of the characters, setting, and events of the story.  The students will use action verbs, imagery, dialogue, and figurative language to paint this picture.  During the activity the students will use a My Hero's Journey Peer Review; revise, edit, and publish their writing to a class Padlet page; and write a letter to their publisher concerning the status of their work.

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

Students will use expressive movement to illustrate the poem "Waves" by Tasha Lim.

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

Students will watch a short clip about Rondo Form. Working in groups of three, students will compose rhythm patterns and arrange them in Rondo Form. Each group will perform their piece for the class.   

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

In this activity, the students will read an article that explores the relationship between synthetic and natural materials. Next, the students will watch a short video clip related to synthetic materials in order to understand the impact these resources can have on society. As they watch the video, the students will assess its validity and purpose by using a graphic organizer.

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

The object of this activity is to demonstrate the concept of climate change. Historical climate data has been used to show a local area in central England to represent an entire time frame. This learning activity incorporates temperature conversions, graphing, graphical analysis and extensions into the Medieval Warm Period. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Students will participate in a guided visualization exercise. This technique will stretch their imaginations like a muscle. Students will share their imagined performance with their class.

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

Students will play Simon Says to practice their knowledge of the nine general stage directions in Theatre. With this activity, students will become proficient in learning the areas of the stage.

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

Students will work in groups to put fraction cards on a number line.  They will need to use strategies based on fraction models and benchmarks to determine the proper placement.  This can be done as a race between groups.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

This lesson incorporates an interactive image created in Genial.ly to explore three works by Pablo Neruda. Working together, students will listen to and analyze the lyrics of each poem to compare and contrast the themes and symbols of each.  

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

This activity is designed to allow students to write a comparison-contrast essay comparing song lyrics dealing with a mother's love. To successfully complete this activity, learners will need to complete the introductory learning activity "Music: A Literary Analysis of Contemporary Music and Its Effect on Children" found on ALEX.

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

Creating and collaborating are two key components of any engaged classroom. In this learning activity, students work together using digital tools to create a presentation that will be shared with their fellow classmates. All living things share four common characteristics (birth, growth, reproduction, and death). This activity will focus on the life cycle of a butterfly and how a similar cycle is seen in all living things. Critical thinking skills will be on full display while students communicate their ideas to the class.

This activity was created as part of a collaboration between Alabama Technology in Motion and ALEX. Activity author recommended by TIM Trainer Barry Wiginton.

Students will research jobs/professions using American Sign Language. They will identify and list various types of jobs/professions and the cities and states where these jobs are most concentrated. Students will identify a job in which they have a personal interest.

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

Students will use elements of music such as tempo, dynamics, and vocal exploration to retell a familiar story, including key details. The students will use music to show expression of the characters in the story. 

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

The teacher will read Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh or use an online video to show the book being read aloud. The students will practice mixing primary paint colors to make secondary paint colors. Then, students will use cotton balls to create mouse footprint shapes from secondary paint colors.

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