Lesson Plans

Students will interpret various primary sources for reconstructing the past, including documents and photographs about dam designs. Students will gain the skills necessary for researching by locating credible and original sources, and determining if the sources are primary or secondary. Students will use technology to create a presentation, highlighting primary and secondary sources.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

Students will explore an article about education in the early nineteenth century and a newspaper article from 1818 to determine what education was like in the early nineteenth century. Students will investigate the documents and find text evidence to find out what schools were like in the early nineteenth century. Students will use their findings to write a story.

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

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.

This lesson will begin with students reviewing the steps of the scientific method, then applying the steps of the scientific method using an online interactive game. Next, students will utilize the steps of the scientific method to explore factors that caused the population of the peppered moth to change over time. The students will conduct an experiment to gather data regarding the factors that led to a population shift in the peppered moth species. Then, students will read an article about the history of the peppered moth and play an online interactive game to further explore the factors that led to a change in this species's population. Lastly, students will develop a writing piece that includes a claim related to the change in the peppered moth's population and evidence that was gathered from the experiment, reading, and online activity.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this lesson, students will work in small groups to examine a letter describing the environment of Alabama and identify reasons which might have encouraged settlers to move to Alabama in the early nineteenth century.   Students will choose an interesting attraction of Alabama mentioned in the letter and design a postage stamp around that attraction. 

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Students are drawn in by a classic story of guilt or innocence as they discover the Western town of Moon Dance, Montana, home of Al, a young man who begins to doubt the innocence of his mentor and father figure. Could Mr. Baumer be guilty of murder? Students are introduced to all the elements of a short story and forget that they are learning how to write an argumentative essay in their zeal to defend their opinion with evidence from the text. 

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.

The lesson will focus on ordering common events by times, days, months, steps, or events. Students will work collaboratively in groups to organize five child-focused events, steps, or times. These titles, events, steps, days, and times will be cut apart so that students need to organize them into a logical sequence. Groups will rotate through the five events to practice daily schedules, holidays, school schedules, weekly events, and procedural texts. Groups may take a picture of completed events as a digital copy or the teacher may check each group for formative assessment.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

After viewing various videos and images, the students will deepen their understanding of the desegregation movement and its continuing influence on today's society. The students will defend their opinions using an open-mic forum and will creatively demonstrate their understanding through writing poetry.

Students will learn to make inferences based on evidence and prior knowledge about their teacher (by looking at objects), classmates (by viewing drawings or PowerPoint), and a reading passage.

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

This lesson may be taught as part of the Unit Plan - Solutions to Lessen Human Impact on the Environment. This lesson will culminate the lessons on recycling that have been previously taught. Students will work collaboratively in groups to discuss texts and factual information they have learned from previous lessons taught on recycling. The students will make a poster or brochure to share with the class. The shared portion of the lesson will be videoed so that the students can share with parents, other family members, and the local city council members.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development.

This lesson looks at the natural resources that drew settlers to Alabama. Students will explore the 1818 letter from Joseph Noble to his friend, Samuel B. Bidgood, describing the town at Tuscaloosa Falls.  Students will explain ideas within this historical text based on specific information presented in this primary source.

Follow-up lesson - Alabama: A Boundless Field of Speculation

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

This lesson will utilize the talking drawings strategy, in which students will begin the lesson by drawing a picture of a plant to illustrate how they think plants make their own food. Then, the teacher will introduce the process of photosynthesis using an interactive presentation to explain photosynthesis in a pictorial format. As the teacher describes the process, the students will create a scientifically accurate drawing of a plant engaging in photosynthesis. Lastly, students will create a writing piece that will describe the process of photosynthesis and construct a scientifically accurate illustration of the process of photosynthesis.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this lesson, students will learn about the executive branch of government at the state level, especially related to the first governors of the state of Alabama. Their impact on the development of Alabama and Alabama's role in the United States will be discussed.

Students will use research and note taking skills to gather information on an early governor. Then students will participate in jigsaw groups to share their information, discuss the importance of each governor, similarities, and impact. Finally, students will discuss the role of governor and how governors have an impact on the state and the impact these men had in Alabama and in other states. 

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History. 

Students will review the meanings of connotation and denotation. Students will apply knowledge of connotation and denotation to "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke.

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

This lesson will include a study of several primary sources that detail the 1918 flu epidemic and how it affected a variety of people in Alabama. Students will work in small groups to study different primary sources and will complete graphic organizers specific to the type of primary source. Groups will then share their information with the class and discuss how the flu affected different populations of Alabama. The focus and outcomes of this lesson will meet the Social Studies standard (SS2010(6)) by allowing the students to describe civilian roles during WWI and to recognize the military bases in Alabama.

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

In 1819 the Constitutional Convention met in Huntsville, Alabama in order to write our state's constitution. In this lesson, students will learn what a preamble is, as well as, read both the United States Preamble to the Constitution and the preamble to Alabama's Constitution. Students will examine similarities between both preambles and discuss possible reasons for such similarities. Fifth-grade teachers could also utilize this lesson to examine and compare both preambles and their purposes. 

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Students will work together in groups to discuss the different character traits their character displays. After developing many traits, students will collaborate to create a presentation of at least 4 slides with sentences that describe the character displaying these traits throughout the book. After completing the presentations, students will head back to their groups and create a timeline of their character's events throughout the story. 

Students will learn about Zora Neale Hurston at the beginning of a unit on Their Eyes Were Watching God. Using the essay "How it Feels to be Colored Me," students will discuss the use of metaphors in correlation to Hurston's life. Students will also construct a poem using metaphors about their own lives. 

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

A brainstorming activity and class discussion will begin the lesson and provide the background knowledge students have regarding zoos and how the animals in zoos impact our environment. Students will select an animal for further research using an online survey created by the teacher to determine their research group. Afterward, students will view an informational video about the origin and purpose of zoos, and complete an exit slip stating new learning that has been added to their background knowledge.

This lesson was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

Students research and create a brochure project on an endangered species of their choice integrating aspects of math, science, social studies, art, reading and writing. This project allows the students to make connections across the curriculum. Students present their ideas to a group of peers persuading the group to help save or become interested in helping the endangered species. Students are also encouraged to make connections between the activities of the human population and their effect on the natural world. 

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

The lesson will begin with a brief review of the previous lesson from the unit, "Increasing Public Safety During Tornadoes," on how climates and geographic locations can affect weather patterns and produce natural disasters. Students will watch a short video during the before strategy to engage learners in the lesson on a particular natural disaster--tornadoes. Students will read various texts and charts in order to understand the causes and effects of tornadoes, putting the information in a T-chart to help organize their thoughts. Students will then discuss their findings with an elbow partner and then write a two-paragraph cause-and-effect essay which will serve as the summative assessment.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

This lesson will focus on creating timelines. Students will use important dates from their lives to create a personal 5 event timeline. Students will use rulers to measure equal spaces for their timelines. This lesson will require two one-hour sessions. The first lesson will include the lesson introduction, work on timelines, and time for formative assessments as students work. The second session will be used to complete timelines, share projects, and complete exit tickets.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

This lesson looks at the natural resources that drew businesses to Alabama. Students will explore the adapted 1820 letter from Mason and Dexter in Cahaba, Alabama to Richards and Simmons in Cumberland, Rhode Island.  Students will explain ideas within this historical text based on specific information presented in this primary source.

This lesson can be used as a stand-alone or can follow A Natural Attraction: The Natural Resources of Alabama During the Early Nineteenth Century. 

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

This lesson will help students identify the moral of the story The Empty Pot by Demi. During this lesson, students will have an opportunity to discuss and write about the character trait honesty. Students will share about a time when they demonstrated this character trait.

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

In this lesson, students will research a variety of animals, plants, and habitats from Alabama. After researching animals, plants, and habitats from Alabama, small groups of students will be assigned a habitat to create.  After creating the habitat in small groups, the small groups of students will share their habitat with their classmates.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This lesson will provide students with two primary documents, a drawing of a postal stagecoach and a newspaper article outlining the difficulties of mail delivery. Students will complete a graphic organizer to provide evidence that details a specific perspective described in the documents.

Students will examine the cultural and economic aspects of the early nineteenth century and will refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences. Students will be able to explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points of view.

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

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 lesson will allow students to gather evidence to better understand how plants and animals provide for themselves by altering the environment. Students will observe plants and animals. Students will discuss their findings with group members. The students will write or draw about their findings. After writing with their group members, students will produce and present their knowledge to the class via Chatterpix.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this lesson, students will demonstrate echolocation using only their sense of hearing to locate sounds in their environment by playing a game of Marco Polo.  Students will create their own method of echlocation  to communicate with each other.  Students will write a narrative, from the viewpoint of a dolphin, describing how a dolphin uses echolocation to communicate and to locate things in their environment to aid in their survival. 

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

After reading a chapter book together as class, table groups will each be given a different story character to analyze in more detail.  Student groups will chose from a given list of choices how they want present their character via a creative app on the iPad to the rest of the class.  The other table groups must guess the character being presented and base their guess upon text evidence.  The table group that everyone guesses accurately wins.

This lesson may be taught as part of the Unit Plan - Solutions to Lessen Human Impact on the Environment. In this lesson, students will participate in creating a recycle drive for a classroom project. Students will create the notification for parents for the recycle drive to help collect items to be recycled. Students will decide by voting on which items they will recycle. Students will bring recyclable items to the classroom for the project. Recyclable materials will be sorted, weighed, and graphed to compare the different items.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

Through this lesson, students will explore primary sources related to the buying and selling of human beings for the purpose of slavery. Students will analyze receipts from stores and discuss what they demonstrate about modern society. Students will then analyze the language and iconography used in bills of sale pertaining to the buying and selling of slaves in the 19th century. The students will write a paragraph to compare and contrast the items from both eras.

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

This lesson is part of a larger unit dealing with Early American Literature. In this lesson, students will become familiar with the figurative devices and strategies used by 17th Century Puritan poets when creating closed or fixed form poetry. 

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

Students will be given the task to build a dam that will stand against water. Students will design and build a scaled model of a dam and test the model for the ability to reduce the impact of a flood. Students will build a scaled model dam and test the dam’s effectiveness in preventing flood waters. Students will evaluate the efficacy of the dam they constructed and built. Students will contemplate what actions can be taken and materials that could be used in order to create a more effective dam in the future.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.