Learning Activities

After learning about types of audio sources and defining credible and useful, students will listen to audio sources for the purpose of gathering useful information. The teacher will play two audio sources for the students. Students will assess the credibility and usefulness of these sources and participate in a listening, note-taking, and written position statement activity.

Prior to this activity, students will have obtained information from audio sources. In this activity, students will use details from the audio sources to defend a position statement. They will share the information obtained within a group of three students and defend the position statement using the evidence gathered from the audio sources. They will also discuss within their group the difference in using audio sources instead of print sources to obtain information.

This learning activity aims to help students define “responsible” and “ethical.” Students will contribute to a Padlet by adding words, examples, or definitions associated with these words. They may draw from their own experience or research these terms online.

To meet the content standard of “utiliz[ing] responsible and ethical research practices,” students must first identify what these practices are. In this activity, students will be assigned a style guide or set of standards to identify responsible and ethical research practices. They will add information from their assigned source to a class slideshow so that they may have a broad range of information on responsible and ethical research practices.

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.

This learning activity defines parts of the standard so that students may begin to understand how to apply these criteria to their writing. By viewing a slideshow, students will learn about criteria that make writing clear, coherent, and suitable for a specific audience and purpose. A quick check for understanding follows the slideshow.

After students have learned the criteria of language that is clear, coherent, and suitable for a specific audience and purpose, they will view examples and non-examples of the criteria.  In this activity, the teacher will lead the students through the slideshow as students apply the criteria to the given sentences or passages. This activity contributes to students’ understanding of the standard and prepares them to write using language that is clear, coherent, and suitable for a specific audience and purpose.

Prior to this activity, students will have defined and identified language that is clear, coherent, and suitable for a particular audience and purpose. In this activity, students will contribute to a class checklist that may be used to evaluate writing.  The teacher may choose to add to this checklist using lessons related to this standard.

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.

Students will view and manipulate an interactive map that shows documented arrival sites of enslaved persons in the United States. They will locate and identify areas with natural harbors, such as Mobile, New York, Boston, Savannah, etc., that served as arrival sites of slave ships and centers of the slave trade. Students will use a template to identify these natural harbors that served as arrival sites from the Middle Passage.

Students will view a photograph of the historic marker placed in Mobile to commemorate the arrival of five ships containing enslaved Africans to that location. They will read the information on the marker to understand why it was placed and to gather details about the ships, such as their names, arrival dates, places of origin, number of captives on board, and number of deaths that occurred during the Middle Passage. Students will utilize this information to recognize Mobile as a center of the slave trade. They will collaborate locally to add the dates and a summary of the information to an online digital timeline.

In this engaging activity, students will combine the world of mathematics and pop culture by delving into interesting facts about the talented singer, songwriter, and dancer Jason Derülo. Through an interactive activity featured in the Alabama Virtual Library, students will have the opportunity to reinforce their understanding of important mathematical concepts while simultaneously piquing their interest in music and pop culture. Through this interactive approach, students will gain confidence in applying the greatest common factor (GCF) and the least common multiple (LCM) concepts to practical situations while enhancing their problem-solving skills.

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

In this action-packed math lesson, students will embark on an exciting adventure. The students will be introduced to a thrilling comic strip where brave heroes face off against a formidable foe, using their knowledge of the greatest common factor (GCF) and the least common multiple (LCM) as a weapon. Through interactive activities and challenges, students will reinforce their understanding of GCF and LCM while enjoying an engaging storyline.

This learning activity was created as a result of the ALEX - Alabama Virtual Library (AVL) 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 activity activates and builds on students’ background knowledge of the butterfly’s unique life cycle. Students will begin the study by completing a K-W-L chart (Know, Want to Know, and Learned). Students will interact with the picture book The Very Impatient Caterpillar by Ross Burach and note characteristics that make the life cycle of a caterpillar unique. 

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

Students will read about the life cycle of a butterfly and moth. Students will discuss the unique characteristics of each stage of the life cycle. Students will then use algorithms to code robots through the various stages of the life cycle of a butterfly. 

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

Students will demonstrate content knowledge of the life cycle of a butterfly. Students will have gained this knowledge through reading nonfiction texts and hands-on coding experiences. To demonstrate learning, students will explain in writing the unique characteristics of each stage.

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

Students will learn to write simple code for robots to read. Students will use blue, black, red, and green markers to write their names on a blank sheet of paper. Students will use robots to trace their written names. Students will experiment with writing their names in various colors, noting how different color combinations prompt the robot to move differently.

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

After students have used markers to write their names in “code” they will partner with a friend to analyze the differences in each of their codes. Students will analyze a peer’s code and will discuss the differences in the created codes. Students will compare and contrast their code.

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

This activity serves as an introduction to the life cycle of a plant. The video will provide a visual to engage students in expanding their background knowledge and building vocabulary acquisition. After the video, the teacher will utilize a Jamboard to lead a discussion of the following words: germinate, photosynthesis, and pollinate. The students will create a definition based on the context of the word in the video, their background knowledge, and the word's structure including prefixes, root words, and suffixes.

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

After completing the before activity and defining keywords for the life cycle of a plant, students will read "Flowering Plants" from the Gale Elementary Online Collection. Students will participate in a class discussion to broaden their understanding of key terms to gain a deeper understanding of the life cycle of a plant. Students will create word definitions for the following words: seed coat, germinate, photosynthesis, pollination, and reproduction. 

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

Students will utilize new academic, content-specific, grade-level vocabulary including seeds, germination, roots and stems, leaves, flowers, and pollination to make connections to the life cycle of a plant. The students will use grade-level text to determine the meaning and order of each step of the plant life cycle. Students will independently create a plant life cycle wheel by ordering the steps of the life cycle of a plant, defining each word in their own words, and creating an illustration. 

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

Students will consider positive and negative experiences they have with cell phones when it comes to their own learning and relationships in school. A quick share with classmates will scaffold background knowledge and promote a variety of perspectives. Students then view a graphic from AVL that contains information about cell phone policies in schools and reflect on their own school's policy. 

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

Students will view the short video that tells the overview of the story of the Clotilda and her survivors. They will use their own notes to write a paragraph summarizing the information from the video to tell the story of the ship Clotilda starting with its voyage from Mobile to Africa, including the settlement of Africatown after Emancipation, and ending with the discovery of its wreckage in 2019. Using a template, students will also create an MLA citation for the YouTube video. In writing the summary and creating the citation, students will demonstrate their knowledge of West Africa and Mobile as sites of slave trade, their ability to summarize in writing, and their capability to cite information appropriately.

Students will listen to the audio of an interview conducted in May of 2019 with Ben Raines, the journalist primarily responsible for locating the shipwreck of the Clotilda.  Students will collaborate in small groups to identify the month and year of the discovery and to write a caption statement for the event on a timeline. The caption will effectively and clearly express the event and will demonstrate students’ command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. The class will look at each of the groups’ written captions and vote using an online tool to select the best caption. The selected caption will be added to an ongoing collaborative timeline started in previous related learning activities of this unit.

Students will be presented with Senate Resolution 315, which was passed in 2019 to memorialize the discovery of the wreckage of the ship Clotilda. The resolution identifies Mobile as a site of slave trade, recognizes Africatown as a significant historic site in Alabama, and identifies significant social and cultural contributions of the survivors of the ship Clotilda. Students will have the opportunity to read the resolution silently, discuss it, and practice reading it aloud. Finally, students will demonstrate fluency in reading the informational text by presenting a read-aloud of the resolution and discussing the important dates noted in the resolution to determine what should be added to the class timeline started in previous related learning activities.

Students will utilize the text of Senate Resolution 315 to pose a question as a class.  They will view a news story about the Africatown Heritage House Museum and use the video to answer the question in a class discussion. The class will formulate additional questions about the news story and conduct an internet search to locate the information to answer those questions using digital sources.

In this activity, students will work in small groups to view a photograph of a mural in Clotilda: The Exhibition which is on display at the Africatown Heritage House in Mobile. They will use the photograph to locate the name of their assigned person. The class will discover and discuss that the people they were assigned in a previous related learning activity were survivors of the slave trade and were on board the ship Clotilda. They will use what they have learned to complete the L portion of the KWL Chart they began in a preceding related learning activity, which will require them to identify Mobile as a site of the slave trade. 

Students will read an article about cell phone usage in schools and add to their graphic organizer by listing the positive and negative effects of cell phones in school. They will discuss their findings and evaluate which reasons are the most compelling. Students will also identify school policies that support the positive use of phones or discourage the negative use of phones in their own schools.

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

Following their research into the positive and negative effects of cell phone usage in schools, students will read a brief article that shares recommendations for healthy habits for young people with phones. Students will create a Public Service Announcement promoting healthy habits for peers. This Public Service Announcement will be shared with peers. 

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

This activity will introduce students to computer hardware and software. Students will explore the similarities and differences between the two. The video shown in this activity will provide the "hook" for the associated during activity.

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

In this activity, students will read articles from Pebble Go about computer hardware and computer software. The students will look for similarities and differences between the two components. After reading they will record information they found in the articles on a note-taking graphic organizer.

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

In this activity, students will create a poster about computer hardware and software using Google Drawings (or other graphic design software). They will add facts about computer hardware and software from their note-taking graphic organizers. They will add images, graphics, or videos to their posters.

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

Students will use evidence and reasoning to construct an explanation describing the differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. During this learning experience, the students will watch a video from Britannica Middle School to learn more about prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and add the information to their K-W-L chart. The activity culminates with a class discussion of the difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.

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

In this learning experience, students will gather information on an index card during a gallery walk to distinguish between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Students will describe the characteristics and structures unique to prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Additionally, students will explain the visual representations of different cells and determine whether they are prokaryotic or eukaryotic.

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