Learning Activities

Through class conversation and research, students determine the difference between private and personal information and what is okay to share in a digital environment. Students will also discuss the two ways to leave a digital footprint: one that tells others who you are and one that tells others where you are.

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

This is an unplugged activity to teach basic algorithms.  As a class - read books and discuss the steps that should be taken to plant a seed. Students will use a worksheet from code.org with pictures of various steps necessary for planting a seed.  Finally, groups exchange completed algorithms and follow the sequence to plant a seed.

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

This learning activity allows students to explore exciting places online while emphasizing the importance of following certain rules to remain safe. Students will take a virtual field trip and discuss the safety rules for traveling online and in the real world. Students will learn that being a good digital citizen includes knowing the rules to work safely.

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

Students learn the basics for giving credit to others for their work as well as giving themselves credit in order for others to use their work. Students will also learn to differentiate between the ideas they create from the ideas they use but someone else created.

This activity was created as a result of the DLCS 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.

The lesson emphasizes the importance of locating valid online sources.  Students will compare and contrast two different sources of information to determine which is the most reliable.  Students will learn to identify the purpose of a website.  Students will also learn the importance of evaluating sources of information for fairness and bias.

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

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.

Your ship is damaged and must rely on mission control to lead you on a rescue mission to save one of your astronauts. Students will design the game board, create the instructions (algorithm), look for mistakes (debug), and finally run the mission (program) to save the astronaut. Resources such as a blank game board, instructions, task cards, and debriefing and reflection sheets provided.

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

Students take photographs of themselves making the shapes of letters. They use the ear for the letter C, their mouth for the letter O, or use their entire body and their peer to create the letter B. Let students get creative and create the alphabet with their body. Compile all the letters into a digital alphabet book in which the students must guess which letter the students are trying to represent in the photograph. 

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

Students lead a quest for buried treasure in this geometry game. Students must follow clues to identify x- and y-coordinates on a treasure map, to lead them around the island before landing on the pirate booty. Students will also graph points on the coordinate plane.  

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Horrendous Soup is a game in which students have to make a recipe for the most disgusting soup they can imagine. Students progress through the game by adding ingredients to the soup. Some of the ingredients are measured in capacity, some are measured in mass, and some are measured in distance. This is a way to reinforce metric conversion skills. To successfully print out the recipe, students must demonstrate the ability to convert the amounts of ingredients to other metric units. For example, liters to milliliters and vice versa, grams to milligrams and vice versa, and millimeters to centimeters to meters.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This measurement menu is comprised of 11 interactives teachers can use with students to practice converting within the customary and metric systems of measurement. Students practice converting measures of length, weight, and capacity, as well as determining which unit of measurement is appropriate for a given object. The interactives are available to be played in relaxed mode or timed mode for an additional challenge. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Half-Court Rounding is a game in which students try to score as many points as possible by rounding numbers to the nearest ten, hundred, or tenth. Students can try any kind of shot within the game and have 90 seconds to score as many points as possible and beat their opponent. If they answer incorrectly, the student misses the shot. Students can also choose a two-player game where they can play a friend or classmate.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this activity, students are challenged to identify and locate the major geographical features in the United States. There are 20 questions, and students have 30 seconds to respond to each question. Each question also includes a hint as a scaffold for students who need additional support in locating the feature. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This activity can serve as a companion activity after students have been learning about the Thirteen Colonies. The Time Zone X activity asks students to think about important events during this time period and put them in chronological order. This game can be used whole class, as a cooperative learning activity, or as an independent practice or assessment tool. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this learning activity, students will use raw eggs and a shoe box to investigate how seat belts and airbags work together to save lives during a collision.  

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this learning activity, students construct an instrument to demonstrate properties of sound. Students use their instrument to help model the transmission of sound.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

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.

In this activity, the students will visit the website, Math Interactives, to reinforce a lesson on proportions. The students will demonstrate their knowledge of proportions by calculating missing values that will develop photographs. For completion, the students will arrange the photographs to view the final product.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource GAP Project.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This activity covers the rock cycle.  It incorporates the transformation of rocks into sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic. It also incorporates activities for identification of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks.  It includes videos (with questions) that reinforce the rock cycle. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This activity utilizes maps and other visualizations to analyze past NOAA hurricane data.  It incorporates graphing wind speed and pressure to note the correlation between the two. Finally, it will show the relationship between hurricane category and damage.  

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this learning activity, students will focus on a rhetorical analysis of visual texts to determine an author's purpose and message. First, students will view a video on how to analyze political or editorial cartoons. By identifying and analyzing labels, symbols, exaggeration, irony, analogy, and argument, students will be able to infer the artist's/author's intended message of the editorial cartoon. Then, students will practice analyzing other cartoons with the same process utilizing the tech tool Flipgrid. (from Common Sense Education:  Flipgrid is a website that allows teachers to create "grids" of short discussion-style questions that students respond to through recorded videos. Each grid is effectively a message board where teachers can pose a question and their students can post 90-second video responses that appear in a tiled "grid" display.)

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this activity, the students will visit the website, Probability Fair, to reinforce a lesson on finding simple probability or chance. The students will demonstrate their knowledge of finding probability to acquire the most tickets in the class.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource GAP Project.

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.

The students will play a game called Hitchhiker. The game brings to life different character traits. The students will experiment with various vocal and physical choices by taking on different character traits through this improvisation exercise. 

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

This activity will help students solve quadratic equations in one variable. While instruction is delivered, the teacher will use the website, Desmos, to show where the graph crosses the x-axis. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource GAP Project.

The teacher will introduce three types of artwork to students: portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. After explaining the characteristics of each form of artwork, the students will sort famous works of art into three categories based on the subject matter.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts 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.

The teacher will read Perfect Square by Michael Hall or use the digital tool to show the book being read aloud. The students will work with a partner to explore art materials and change a "perfect square" of construction paper into a new work of art. 

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

The teacher will read My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss or use an online video to show the book being read aloud. The students will color printouts of each animal in the story and use color to show their mood on a person-shaped printout. Students will cut and glue the printouts to craft sticks to create stick puppets, then use the stick puppets to retell the story to a partner.

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

This activity allows the student to reinforce a lesson for multiplying binomials. The students will be visualizing the multiplication of binomials by manipulating tiles on a digital diagram.

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

This mini-Breakout game introduces students to primary sources and World War I in an engaging and fun manner! Students use hints and solve clues to unlock the box and rescue primary source analysis documents that help them reveal details about the impact of World War I on Alabamians such as Curtis McCall. The main primary source utilized in the game/introductory activity is a draft registration card from World War I. 

This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

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.

The activity will reinforce a lesson about unit rates and ratios. This learning activity should be used after a lesson on unit rates and ratios. The activity will ask the student to match the ratio with the unit rate. The winner of the game will be the student with the lowest time.

This activity results from the ALEX Resource GAP Project.