ALEX Lesson Plan Resources

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ALEX Lesson Plans  
Subject: English Language Arts (3), or Science (3)
Title: Diverting Disaster With Lightning Rods
Description: Students will use a Venn diagram to compare lightning and static electricity. Then, students will experiment with static electricity and read nonfiction passages about lightning and lightning rods. Finally, they will apply their learning to construct a model of a lightning rod system that protects a house from a lightning-induced fire. This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project. 

Subject: English Language Arts (3), or Mathematics (2)
Title: Let's Go Shopping!
Description: This lesson will give students practice with adding and subtracting money using a calculator. It will provide them an opportunity to determine savings using a store coupon, and determine the change they should recieve when making purchases using $1.00 and $5.00 bills. This lesson plan was created by exemplary Alabama Math Teachers through the AMSTI project.

Thinkfinity Lesson Plans  
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Alaska Native Stories: Using Narrative to Introduce Expository Text      Add Bookmark
Description: Tradition and technology come together in this lesson in which students learn about Alaskan animals through Native American tales and their own online research.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts,Religion
Title: ' Phony Holy Man,'' '' Ant and Chrysalis''       Add Bookmark
Description: This student interactive, from an EDSITEment lesson, guides students through the process of comparing a Buddhist Jataka tale ('' The Phony Holy Man'' ) and one of Aesop s fables ('' The Ant and the Chrysalis'' ).
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Find favorite book picks in the Children's Choices.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students create lists of their favorite books and then the class creates a '' Top Picks'' class booklist. Students can use the Book Cover Creator to create a book jacket for their favorite book.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2,3,4,5,6


Subject: Language Arts,Mathematics
Title: A Tale of Two Stories      Add Bookmark
Description: This unit of two lessons, from Illuminations, focuses on on developing the process of classification, especially an awareness of similarities and differences. The activities use The Three Little Pigs and Cinderella to motivate students to think and reason mathematically.
Thinkfinity Partner: Illuminations
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts,Mathematics
Title: If the Shoe Fits...      Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson plan, one of a multi-part unit from Illuminations, is inspired by children s natural curiosity about fantasy and fairy tales and focuses on the process of classification, especially an awareness of similarities and differences. The activity uses Cinderella to motivate students to think and reason mathematically.
Thinkfinity Partner: Illuminations
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Examining Plot Conflict through a Comparison/Contrast Essay      Add Bookmark
Description: Students explore picture books to identify the characteristics of four types of conflict. They then write about a conflict they have experienced and compare it to a conflict from literature.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Thundering Tall Tales: Using Read-Aloud as a Springboard to Writing      Add Bookmark
Description: Imagination and application are key to this tall tale lesson in which students take what they know about tall tales to spin a yarn of their own.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Q is for Duck: Using Alphabet Books With Struggling Writers      Add Bookmark
Description: A is for zoo? Q is for duck? The alphabet as students know it is transformed when students create a class book that contains clever associations for each letter of the alphabet.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Using Science Texts to Teach the Organizational Features of Nonfiction      Add Bookmark
Description: Students explore organizational features of nonfiction science. Students then work together to create a two-page spread using those features to present information about their local environment.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Exploring Compare and Contrast Structure in Expository Texts      Add Bookmark
Description: Students build their understanding of the terms compare and contrast by participating in class discussions, using Internet resources, working collaboratively, and by visually representing information in a Venn diagram.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Native Americans Today      Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson challenges students' views of Native Americans as a vanished people by asking them to compare their prior knowledge with information they gather while reading about contemporary Native Americans.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Montgomery Ward published the first mail-order catalog in 1872.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students explore how and why catalogs have changed over the years and compare their findings about printed catalogs with online catalogs.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Caldecott Medal-winner Virginia Lee Burton was born on this day in 1909.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students discuss similarities in Burton's illustrations and writing style in her many books, in addition to her use of personification.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Literature as a Catalyst for Social Action: Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges      Add Bookmark
Description: Students are invited to confront and discuss issues of injustice and intolerance reading a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Alter Egos and More with Avis '' Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?''       Add Bookmark
Description: After reading Avi's novel '' Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?'' , students create an alter ego for themselves and use it to write their own radio show, modeled after the book.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: November is National American Indian Heritage Month.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students explore Native American heritage through the study of pourquoi tales, write their own original pourquoi tales, and use the ReadWriteThink Printing Press to publish them.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12