Learning Activities

This learning activity is a great introduction for problem-solving using addition and subtraction to solve word problems within 20.

The video uses relatable objects, a friendly robot guide, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem. It includes the use of addition and subtraction strategies like counting on and how much more.

The video is engaging and offers 4 methods for adding and subtracting in a word problem. Students have the ability to add to or take from, and compare quantities to solve word problems within 20 like fewer or more than.

Students will follow along with the video using small concrete objects and illustrations to represent the word problems from the video. 

This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Resource Development 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 activity is for a virtual hundreds chart puzzle game.  Students can use the puzzle to explore number patterns within 100, finding 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, and 1 less of a given number. This activity will be best used after students are familiar with a hundreds chart.

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

In this learning activity, students will create a Voki as a creative, easy-to-use tool that will help motivate students, improve lesson comprehension, and student participation.  Students will use a Voki to define key mathematical terms ( factors, sum, terms, product, quotient, coefficients) needed to identify parts of an expression.

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

In this interactive activity, students will be introduced to the concept of the greatest common factor (GCF) in a fun and engaging way. The activity revolves around an exciting article featuring NHL hockey star Nathan MacKinnon and his remarkable achievements in the sport. As students read the article, they will encounter five intriguing questions about MacKinnon's life and career. Using GCF, students will deduce the correct answers from the given choices. The primary goal of this activity is to introduce students to the concept of GCF and spark their curiosity through real-life scenarios involving a well-known sports figure allowing students to connect mathematical concepts with their interests and experiences, creating an enjoyable and relatable learning experience.

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

This is an activity used to introduce a lesson on explicit and recursive formulas for a sequence from a pattern. Students are asked to examine a pattern and find a formula to describe the sequence in the pattern. They will then determine if they wrote an equation that is recursive or explicit using the given definitions of both.  

The 10 Less and 10 More document can be used as an assessment, exit pass, or practice sheet for students working on adding/subtracting ten and 100 from any given number between 100 and 900.

This learning activity will guide students through solving story problems. It will help the students unpack simple word problems with unknowns in all positions.  The students will use different strategies to solve problems. It will encourage the students to make sense of problems. This learning activity will engage the students so that they will feel confident in solving a variety of story problems.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

This learning activity will be used during a lesson on Adding and Subtracting Vectors. Students will explore how to add vectors end-to-end, component-wise, and by the parallelogram rule, determine the direction of their sum, represent vector subtraction graphically by connecting the tips in the appropriate order, and perform vector subtraction component-wise. The teacher will use the Adding and Subtracting Vectors Lesson to cover the “I DO” and “We Do” portions of the lesson.

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

Through this activity, students will be introduced to the vocabulary terms "more than, less than, and equal to." Students will use these terms to make comparisons of sets of objects and gain an understanding of "more than, less than, and equal to."

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

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 to cover the “I Do” and “We Do” portions of the lesson.

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

This video will introduce students to the skill of writing equations based on word problems. There is also a karaoke-style video that reminds students of the steps for transforming word problems into equations as well as important vocabulary words. There is a corresponding seven-question quiz that will be used to assess student understanding of this concept. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

This learning activity should be used at the end of a lesson on recognizing angle measure as additive. The students will find missing angle measurements using a real-world problem. This learning activity can be used as an assessment.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This interactive mathematics resource explores the properties of triangles, quadrilaterals, and regular polygons and allows students to classify shapes based on their properties.

This interactive has an "explore it" tool that could be used to teach attributes of 2D shapes, and also a "use it" Shape Guess game that students can practice identifying and sorting shapes according to their attributes.

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

Students will work in pairs and roll various colored dice in order to create polynomial expressions for addition and/or subtraction.

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

While students are in pairs and without being able to see each other, student 1 designs and provides oral instructions to student 2 in order for student 2 to recreate a shape and/or structure only student 1 can see. Student 2 can ask clarifying questions, but that is all. This activity builds skills in sequencing, classifying, sorting, orientation, and relative position of objects. It also builds listening skills for oral comprehension and asking and answering concise questions.

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

During this learning activity, students will solve a real-life task that allows students to create an array to find the total number of rows of chairs needed at a music concert. Students will write multiplication and division equations and solve them to complete the music concert task. This activity will help students see the relationship between multiplication and division.

In this learning activity from Geogebra, students will practice graphing ordered pairs. Students will complete three separate tasks: Task 1: Practicing plotting ordered pairs, Task 2: Plotting ordered pairs, and Task 3: Creating ordered pairs. Each task will have instructions to help the students to complete the lesson. 

In this activity, students will compute real-world problems with rational numbers while using a digital number line. Students are provided a sample problem to work through to become familiar with the digital number line. Since problems can be solved using multiple methods, students are asked to provide a number sentence to represent their number line model as well as the solution to the problem. Through the online digital tool, students can also share a link to their work with their teacher or classmates. This provides a great opportunity for students to investigate how to solve problems using multiple methods.

Using Number Lines to Model Real-World Problems Student Response Page

Students will use data from a table to make multiplicative comparison statements of the data. This activity allows multiple practice opportunities.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

CalcWorkshop is a subscription-based service, however, Unit Circle With Everything is a free webpage with printable PDFs. Unit Circle With Everything is a tool that can be used to study the Unit Circle and the different parts that make up the Unit Circle such as reference angles, radian measure, trigonometric ratios, and angle measurements.

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

In this activity, students will begin thinking about the power of exponents. They are given a choice of receiving 500 coins right now or receiving one coin the first day and doubling the amount each day for a month. Students will watch a free video tutorial to guide them through why exponents are used, how to simplify the same-base number with exponents, and how to show equivalent expressions to bases containing negative exponents. The video tutorial explains exponents in a way that all students can understand. Then, the students will revisit their choices by watching another video and work problems posed to see if their choice was wise considering the power of exponents. This activity can be used as an introduction to a lesson on exponents. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Department Summit.

This learning activity is a fun and interactive game. It will develop number sense by composing and decomposing numbers as well as building a foundation for place value skills. It can be used in whole group and small group instruction.  Before this game, the students will need to know strategies for making numbers in different ways. After the students are comfortable with this game, it can be varied by playing it with breaking into three parts. Students will have the opportunity to use several of the mathematical practices. This task allows the teacher to assess students' mathematical understanding.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

This Desmos Activity will lead students to sort patterns and write formulas for each pattern.  They will then sort the formulas into either recursive formulas or explicit formulas. 

This learning activity is a great way to add high interest to grade 5 standards. It can be used after the study of identifying and plotting points on coordinate planes, relating points and finding distances in a coordinate plane, graphing and interpreting data in a coordinate plane, making and interpreting line graphs, and basic computer skills. This activity can be completed as a partner activity/assessment or an independent activity/assessment.   

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.

In this learning activity, students will use a quality task to measure the lengths of toy cars to the nearest quarter of an inch and record their data in a chart. The class will use this data to create a line plot of the lengths of the toy cars. 

In this before activity, students will engage in a number talk to link strategies used with numbers within 100 to numbers within 1,000. The number talk uses numbers under 120.

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

Coloring With the Unit Circle is a Google Doc tool that allows the student to study the Unit Circle and the different parts that make up the Unit Circle such as reference angles, radian measure, trigonometric ratios, and angle measurements. The student will find and color the reference angles on the unit circle.

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

Students will go on a “shopping trip” to buy items with prices written both as decimals and fractions with 10 or 100 as the denominator.  After they have decided which five items to “buy,” they will calculate the total cost of their items by adding fractions with 10 and 100 as the denominator.  The students will use a visual model to represent the equivalence between fractions with different denominators.

This activity results from the ALEX 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.

In this introduction to integers, the students discuss the meaning of the number zero and then practice determining whether a situation should be represented by a positive or a negative number. They will either jump or sit down to physically represent integers.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.

Students will discover how the Pythagorean Theorem describes the relationship between the lengths of the sides of a right triangle. By using this digital tool, students will understand the visual and algebraic proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. Students will apply the Pythagorean Theorem to find missing lengths and to calculate distances between points on the coordinate plane.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource GAP Project.

In this activity, the teacher will begin with the video, Partition Shapes Into Equal Shares. The teacher will review the definition of partition, whole, equal shares, halves, thirds, and fourths. The teacher will use paper plates, construction paper, and card stock to demonstrate partitioning the whole into equal shares of halves, thirds, and fourths.  

This resource was created in partnership with Dothan City Schools.

This activity should be used as extra practice or an assessment after students have been introduced to the relationship between multiplication and division. Students will find the fact family for a given array and then solve a word problem where they must write the multiplication and division equation that represents the problem. 

In this learning activity, students will watch a video that teaches them to count down from ten in order to see a rocket launch. Students will then practice in groups or independently to re-create their own blast off by counting backward from ten to zero.