Lesson Plans

Students will begin the lesson by matching pictures of animal parents and offspring, then the teacher will allow students to describe how they were able to create matches. Next, the teacher will create a T-chart and allow students to share how dogs are similar in appearance in some ways but can also have different characteristics. Lastly, the students will create an illustration of a new animal using a "Trait Table" that includes characteristics of both parent animals. At the conclusion of the lesson, the students should be able to identify similarities and differences between offspring and their parents and other members of the same species.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

In this lesson, students will discover the impact Ruby Bridges made in history when she became the first black child to attend a white school. Your students will be sure to fall in love with the story Ruby has to tell and how this child's courage changed life in the United States. 

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

This is one of three lessons that can be taught alone, or as the second part of a series, "Solutions from Nature." In this lesson, students explore the structure of plants, and the parts that provide stability. They choose from different materials to construct a house that is sturdy (like the stem) and has a foundation (like the roots). Students test the strength of their design to determine which elements/materials provide increased stability.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

This is a multi-session interactive lesson plan about animal adaptations for kindergarten through second-grade students. The goal of this interactive digital lesson plan is to guide students through activities that help them understand how characteristics such as body covering, body parts, and behaviors help animals survive. These lesson plans also build cooperation and communication skills for students. There are additional resources provided for the teacher to use before or after using the HyperDoc. 

This Lesson Plan was created in partnership with the Birmingham Zoo.

Students will learn nouns by using an interactive sorting game. Students will compete with each other by putting noun cards down on the floor categorized by person, place, animal, or thing. Students will have to read and sort the cards. The student with no noun cards first, wins!

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

In this lesson, students will learn the purpose of a timeline and how to create one. Students will also be able to apply timeline skills to reading comprehension.

This is an inquiry-based lesson that allows the students to create a string telephone to investigate how sound can be used to communicate over a given distance.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

Listening to narrative text offers students a chance to go beyond decoding and word meaning. Listening as the teacher reads a story gives students an opportunity to appreciate, and draw significance, and meaning as well as informal practice using story elements. Listening to read-alouds gives the teacher the opportunity to model "close" reading skills as well as model thinking.

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

This is one of three lessons that can be taught alone, or as the first part of a series, "Solutions from Nature."  In this lesson, students explore characteristics of animals that provide insulation.  They experiment with different materials to build a "glove" that can protect their hands from a cold ice bath. A YouTube link to a similar demonstration is provided below.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

This lesson is an introduction to the concept of light sources (both natural and man-made), as well as levels of light (bright, dim, dark, pitch black). Students will explore these concepts through a children’s literature read-aloud, discussion of personal experiences, brainstorming and sorting activities (with optional technology use), and hands-on activities with lightboxes. Students conclude with a narrative writing assignment. This lesson can be divided and taught over the course of several days, or integrated into multiple subject areas (reading, science, and writing blocks) as time permits.  

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Children often do not understand spiders because spiders look scary. In this lesson, students will graph spider preferences and record observations of spiders in a natural habitat. Students will research spider information using the Internet. Students will illustrate a vivarium for a spider habitat, including  five environmental characteristics. 

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

This lesson is a small group phonics lesson. Using Sheep in a Jeep students will learn that ee says /e/. Students will read and write long e words and read the story Sheep in a Jeep.

This is an inquiry-based lesson that allows students to investigate how vibrations of matter can create sound and that sound can make matter vibrate. 

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

Students will throw addition problems or answers (on paper) across the classroom and find the matching problem or answer! Students will use mental math to compute the matching answer. Students will quietly walk around the classroom to find the person with the matching paper. Let’s throw math around!

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

Students will use transparent, translucent, opaque, and reflective items that they find around the classroom or school to investigate how light passes through an object. This activity will demonstrate how light behaves around objects. The first investigation will take students on a scavenger hunt to find objects that fit each type.  Students will classify each object using a flashlight and analyzing how light passes through the object. Then the final investigation will allow students to experiment with how the amount of light that each type allow effects the rate at which ice will melt.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

In this lesson, students will investigate objects’ appearances in varying levels of light to help them construct an explanation that objects can only be seen when light is available to illuminate them. Students will discuss why objects look different in a dark room and graph their preferences for sleeping with a light on or off. Then, they will investigate how an object’s appearance changes in different lighting conditions in small group centers. Finally, they will model the moon’s path around the sun to see how light from the sun causes the moon’s appearance to change as it orbits Earth. At the conclusion of the lesson, students will use their experiences as evidence to explain that light is essential for sight.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

The students will go on an in-school scavenger hunt to get to know the many kinds of people that make up an elementary school community. They will work in small groups and use digital cameras to take pictures of the workers they find. By completing the scavenger hunt, the students will gain a better understanding of how we are all dependent on one another in a small community.

In this lesson, students will listen as the teacher reads Something Good by Robert Munsch. In the story, the characters make choices about the foods they should purchase at the grocery store and learn a lesson about needs and wants. As a whole class, students classify needs and wants from the story.  Then students will use local grocery store sales papers and create their own grocery list with needs and wants.

The students will create a communication device using everyday resources. The students will explain how vibration is used to create sound and sound waves.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

What makes you jump? When someone scares you? When you are fuming mad? When you are excited about scoring a goal? In this lesson, students will explore all the reasons that make us jump. The students will write a poem about a time they jumped and make a simple collage of themselves jumping. 

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

Students will observe the changes of the sun over the course of a day and then over a 4 month period. Students will document these changes and then graph them. Finally, students will see the relationship between the patterns of the sun and the effect the pattern has on our daily lives. 

This lesson was created as part of the 2016 NASA STEM Standards of Practice Project, a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

This lesson will begin with students brainstorming methods of communication using a web graphic organizer. Next, students will collaborate with a partner to create a basic cup phone set. Then, the teacher will lead students to develop a revised cup phone set using a variety of different materials. Lastly, the students will design and construct a revised version of the cup phone and test its effectiveness as compared to the first cup phone set.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Students will learn what an adjective is and how to categorize adjectives using an interactive sorting game. Students will compete with each other by categorizing adjectives by color, shape, size, and kind. Students will have to read and sort the adjective word cards. The student with no adjective word cards first, wins! Furthermore, students will use magazine photographs to describe nouns and write sentences.

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

This is one of three lessons that can be taught alone, or as the third part of a series, "Solutions from Nature."  In this lesson, students examine outer parts of animals that provide protection (turtles, crabs, pill bugs, snails, etc.).  They choose from different materials to construct a “helmet” that can protect an egg from breaking if it is dropped.    

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

After reading, What if You Had Animal Ears? by Sandra Markle, students will plan, design, and create bat-like ears from various materials for a STEM challenge. Students will test their models and redesign them to improve the effectiveness of their models to increase their own ability to hear by mimicking the external parts of a bat's ear. The students will measure and collect data from tests and compare results between the design and the redesign. This lesson can be completed in two 45 minute sessions or one 90 minute session. 

This lesson plan was created in partnership with the Birmingham Zoo. 

Students will use number bonds and counters as a strategy for finding the missing addend. Students will become aware of the relationship between addition and subtraction. They will also use counting as it is related to addition and subtraction.

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

In this lesson, students investigate cardinal directions and the compass rose through video and a directions game. Then, students will draw and label a map of the classroom using cardinal directions.