ALEX Lesson Plans

Subject: English Language Arts (2), or English Language Arts (2), or Social Studies (2), or Technology Education (K - 2)
Title: The Biography Project: Exploring the Past in 21st Century Ways
Description: Through this project-based lesson, students will do research on and create an oral presentation based on the life of an influential Famous American. Students will utilize various means to glean information, from online databases, various websites, and age-appropriate biographical literature to prepare for the final product: a "Living Wax Museum." Students will determine the most relevant information to write a script presented in the form of an oral presentation. The presentations will also be recorded and published as a podcast for sharing on the teacher's website.

Subject: English Language Arts (2), or English Language Arts (2)
Title: The Second Grade Times: Students Write A Newspaper
Description: In this project-based language development lesson, English Language Learners learn about the newspaper publication and create their own newspaper that covers stories about their school year. The lesson format follows the Sheltered English Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP).

Subject: English Language Arts (2), or English Language Arts (2), or Science (2), or Technology Education (K - 2)
Title: Is it a Moth or a Butterfly?
Description: During this lesson, students will explore the differences and similarities between a moth's life and a butterfly's life. Students will be given the opportunity to improve upon their note-taking skills during a virtual museum tour. Students will enhance their technology skills by designing slideshow presentations from information gathered on the Internet.

Thinkfinity Lesson Plans

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Let's Build a Snowman Add Bookmark
Description: In this lesson, students use both fiction and nonfiction texts, the Internet, and a K-W-L chart to learn about how animals survive the winter.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Catching the Bug for Reading Through Interactive Read-Alouds Add Bookmark
Description: Students learn about story structure, new vocabulary, and a variety of reading strategies by participating in an interactive read-aloud of Miss Bindergarten Stays Home From Kindergarten by Joseph Slate.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Teaching About Story Structure Using Fairy Tales Add Bookmark
Description: From '' once upon a time'' to '' happily ever after,'' students learn to recognize story structure in fairy tales and create a logical sequence of events when writing original stories.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Fact or Fiction: Learning About Worms Using Diary of a Worm Add Bookmark
Description: Students often believe that fiction writers make everything up, seldom realizing how research worms its way into entertaining writing. In this lesson, students read Diary of a Worm to find out how fact merges with fiction.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts
Title: From Stop Signs to the Golden Arches: Environmental Print Add Bookmark
Description: Students bring the print-rich environment of the community into the classroom through the use of environmental print, enabling emergent readers to delight in the realization that they are indeed readers.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1

Subject: Educational Technology,Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Sodbusters! Add Bookmark
Description: In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students examine photographs of sod houses, build a model sod house, and picture themselves living in a '' soddie'' to gain a firsthand perspective on the frontier period of American history. After completing the activities in this lesson, students will be able to identify where and when American settlers lived and describe how settlers used available materials to build sod houses. They will also be able to explain how sod houses helped settlers adapt to the environment of the plains and compare living in a sod house with life in a typical home today.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Listen, Look, and Learn: An Information-Gathering Process Add Bookmark
Description: After listening to and discussing the story Score One for the Sloths, primary students research the sloth. Students use a variety of resources, including an information wheel graphic organizer.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Rain, Ice, Steam: Using Reading to Support Inquiry About the Water Cycle Add Bookmark
Description: Water is always moving in a continuous cycle from liquid to solid to gas and back again. Students study this never-ending cycle through shared readings, center activities, and experiments.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Digging Up Details on Worms: Using the Language of Science in an Inquiry Study Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson, in which students research worms in order to create a classroom habitat, incorporates reading and writing across content areas as well as math and science activities.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Teaching Audience Through Interactive Writing Add Bookmark
Description: Through interactive writing, students work together and then independently to create invitation letters for a group of their peers and their families.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Shhh! Bear's Sleeping: Learning About Nonfiction and Fiction Using Read-Alouds Add Bookmark
Description: Students explore the distinction between the fiction story Bear Snores On and the nonfiction book Every Autumn Comes the Bear.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Packing the Pilgrim's Trunk: Personalizing History in the Elementary Classroom Add Bookmark
Description: Students make personal connections between their lives and those of Pilgrim children by following the Pilgrims' move to the New World, their daily lives and struggles and their first Thanksgiving.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2

Subject: Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Tell a Migration Story...With Interviews Add Bookmark
Description: In this Xpeditions student activity, students become reporters for the local newspaper and conduct interviews with someone who has migrated to their community. After they finish their interviews, students share what they have learned about their interviewees experiences, memories, and feelings about coming to live in their new community.
Thinkfinity Partner: National Geographic Education
Grade Span: K,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: It's Too Loud in Here! Teamwork in the Classroom Add Bookmark
Description: Students work with their peers to develop classroom rules.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2