ALEX Lesson Plan Resources

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ALEX Lesson Plans  
Subject: Character Education (K - 12), or English Language Arts (4)
Title: Constitution Day Wordle
Description: Students will draw inferences about the delegates of the Constitutional Congress after watching the video describing the process of creating the Constitution. Students will then follow a link to the Alabama Virtual Library where they will read or listen to an article written about why we celebrate the United States Constitution looking at important details from the text that tell who, what happened, and where and other specific keywords from the text.  Students will then work independently taking their words gathered from the article and place them in a word cloud using Wordle .They will then partner and share paraphrasing the text by explaining the words they chose for their word cloud. This lesson will be taught in one day.

Subject: English Language Arts (4)
Title: Save the Elephants
Description: The students will evaluate the threat to elephants due to the illegal ivory trade. They will read an article, watch a video, and create a public service announcement to help end the threat to elephants. This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

Subject: English Language Arts (4), or Information Literacy (K - 12), or Technology Education (3 - 8)
Title: Skillful Slideshows
Description: During this technology-based lesson, students learn how to create slideshow presentations that are creative and inviting to the audience. They use fonts, graphics, effects, etc, to capture audience attention.

Subject: English Language Arts (4), or Social Studies (4), or Technology Education (3 - 5)
Title: Expository Writing and The Civil War
Description: This lesson is designed to help students strengthen their research and writing skills, while learning more about the Civil War, as they produce an expository paragraph. Students will glean information from an article about the causes of the Civil War and then use the "Step Up To Writing" technique to write their paragraphs.

Subject: English Language Arts (4), or Social Studies (3 - 5), or Technology Education (3 - 5)
Title: The Native Americans and Their Environment
Description: The students will research Native American groups and relate how the environment affected their lifestyles and cultures. The students will create a slideshow presentation depicting this relationship. The students will compare Native American groups in order to observe the differences in their lifestyles and cultures.

Subject: English Language Arts (4), or Social Studies (4), or Technology Education (3 - 5)
Title: Did You Hear the News?
Description: After studying about the differences between the North and South prior to the Civil War and how Alabama decided to secede from the Union, students will write a newspaper article on this important decision. They will go back in time and imagine they lived in Alabama as a journalist in the year of 1861. The articles will be published in newspaper format using Microsoft Publisher and distributed.

Subject: English Language Arts (4), or Information Literacy (K - 12)
Title: Using an Almanac
Description: Students will work in groups to learn appropriate uses of an almanac and how to find information in it efficiently and effectively. Each group will be responsible for explaining the steps taken to complete the task. This lesson is best used with fourth and fifth grades.

Subject: English Language Arts (4), or Social Studies (4), or Technology Education (3 - 5)
Title: Alabama Biographies of the 20th Century
Description: In this lesson, students will recognize and examine the lives of Alabamians who have impacted the lives of others and the history of the state with their notable contributions during the first half and last half of the twentieth century. This interdisciplinary lesson relates social studies, language arts and reading. Through this inquiry study, students will choose one of the famous Alabamians, research the person's contributions, write a short biographical summary, and as an extension, create a 3-D scan picture relating to the life and times of the individual.

Thinkfinity Lesson Plans  
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Today is St. Patrick's Day.      Add Bookmark
Description: St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by reading Irish folk tales and using the Story Map tool to create a graphic organizer and see what characteristics are unique to Irish tales.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12


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
Title: Cyberspace Explorer: Getting to Know Christopher Columbus      Add Bookmark
Description: Students explore multiple online sources to gather information about the life of Christopher Columbus, complete a cyber scavenger hunt, and use their notes to prepare a timeline and summary report.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Guided Comprehension: Making Connections Using a Double-Entry Journal      Add Bookmark
Description: Based on the Guided Comprehension Model by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson helps students learn three types of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world) using a double-entry journal.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 4,5,6


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Guided Comprehension: Monitoring Using the INSERT Technique      Add Bookmark
Description: Based on the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson introduces students to the comprehension strategy of monitoring.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 4,5,6


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Guided Comprehension: Self-Questioning Using Question-Answer Relationships      Add Bookmark
Description: Guided comprehension moves your students beyond decoding to become independent readers. Generating questions to guide reading helps readers make connections with the text and supports independent comprehension of new texts.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Blending Fiction and Nonfiction to Improve Comprehension and Writing Skills      Add Bookmark
Description: Students use a text set to increase understanding of content area material and demonstrate what they have learned by writing an original piece that blends together narrative and expository elements.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Guided Comprehension: Visualizing Using the Sketch-to-Stretch Strategy      Add Bookmark
Description: Guided comprehension moves your middle-grade students beyond decoding to become successful, independent readers. The sketch-to-stretch strategy encourages students to use '' brain TV'' to help them understand a text through visualization.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 4,5,6


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: Investigating Junk Mail: Negotiating Critical Literacy at the Mailbox      Add Bookmark
Description: Students increase their media literacy skills by critically examining and revising junk mail.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Research Building Blocks: Notes, Quotes, and Fact Fragments      Add Bookmark
Description: Students are guided through the process of taking notes while reading factual information, then turning those notes into new sentences and paragraphs written in their own words.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Teaching Science Through Picture Books: A Rainforest Lesson      Add Bookmark
Description: Students read Welcome to the Green House, use note-taking strategies, find patterns in text structure, learn vocabulary in context, and write efferent and affective responses to the text.
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: Arts,Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: The Preamble to the Constitution: How Do You Make a More Perfect Union?      Add Bookmark
Description: In this unit of five EDSITEment lessons, students investigate the purposes of the U.S. Constitution, as identified in the Preamble to the Constitution. They also study fundamental values and principles as they are expressed in the Preamble.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Vote for Me! Developing, Writing, and Evaluating Persuasive Speeches      Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson encourages students in grades 4 and 5 to think critically and write persuasively by focusing on preparing, presenting, and evaluating mock campaign speeches.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 4,5


Subject: Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Slave Narratives: Constructing U.S. History Through Analyzing Primary Sources      Add Bookmark
Description: In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students research narratives from the Federal Writers Project and describe the lives of former African slaves in the U.S., both before and after Emancipation. From varied stories, students sample the breadth of individual experiences, make generalizations about the effects of slavery and Reconstruction on African Americans, and evaluate primary source documents.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: A Daily DEAR Program: Drop Everything, and Read!      Add Bookmark
Description: The teacher shouts, '' Drop Everything and Read!'' and students settle into their seats to read books they've selected. This independent reading program helps students build a lifelong reading habit.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts - Journalism - Social Studies - Geography
Title: Seeing the World Through the News      Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson, from Xpeditions, introduces students to National Geographic News and has them find several articles about recent geographic and environmental developments. Students are probably familiar with some general news sources, such as the daily newspaper or the nightly TV news. They are less likely to know about specialty sources such as geographic or environmental news Web sites. Students map the locations these news stories describe and explain how maps can help them learn about what's going on around the world.
Thinkfinity Partner: National Geographic Education
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: American Colonial Life in the Late 1700s: Distant Cousins      Add Bookmark
Description: In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students explore daily life and its influences in the late 1700s for two families in different colonies: Delaware and Massachusetts. Students use maps to consider the historical and geographical factors in the development of different colonies, research life in two such colonies by investigating artifacts, and write letters to each other from the perspectives of children in the Ipswich, Massachusetts colony and the Mill Creek, Delaware colony.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts - Journalism - Social Studies - Comparative Political Systems - Social Studies - Geography - Social Studies - World History
Title: Submarines: The Journey of K-19      Add Bookmark
Description: In this lesson, from Xpeditions, students study the ill-fated first mission of K-19, the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine. Students learn about the Cold War and locate the key points of K-19's journey on a map. They consider the actions of crew members who risked their lives so that others might survive and contemplate the reasons why the story was kept secret until the end of the Cold War. Students conclude by writing a newspaper article about the accident at sea.
Thinkfinity Partner: National Geographic Education
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: The prototype for the World Wide Web was created in 1990.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students look at pictures from the past using the WayBack Machine and brainstorm a few websites to explore to think about how they have changed over the years.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Using Historical Fiction to Learn About the Civil War      Add Bookmark
Description: Students in grades 4 and 5 discuss inferential comprehension and visualization as they use a think-aloud questioning strategy to develop a deeper understanding of a historical novel.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Exploring How Section Headings Support Understanding of Expository Texts      Add Bookmark
Description: Nonfiction may be dull for some students, but this lesson helps them focus on the main ideas. Through awareness of section headings, students learn to sort and categorize main concepts.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Writing and Assessing an Autobiographical Incident      Add Bookmark
Description: Students build upon their knowledge of biographies to write their own autobiographical incident. After going through a process of revision, they use a rubric to assess their work.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Wartime Poetry: Working With Similes      Add Bookmark
Description: Students analyze a photograph, brainstorm words to describe the characters' senses and feelings, work in pairs to describe a character's experience, and create a poem using their ideas and similes.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


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: Creating a Classroom Newspaper      Add Bookmark
Description: Students write authentic newspaper stories, including learning about various aspects of newspapers, such as writing an article, online articles, newspaper reading habits, and layout and design techniques.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5


Subject: Language Arts
Title: All About Our Town: Using Brochures to Teach Informational Writing      Add Bookmark
Description: Students explore their towns' landmarks, symbols, and people; look at brochures and other informational tools; practice writing for a specific audience and revising; and work collaboratively to create a brochure.
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