I created this activity to help students learn to identify the author’s purpose. This activity is meant to help students see the completed strategy while asking them to analyze what is going on. This allows the students to pick apart the completed strategy in order to better understand it. This activity should be completed before asking students to identify the author’s purpose of an entire passage. When talking about author’s purpose use the acronym PIE (persuade, inform, and entertain). This is an engaging way to practice SOL 4.6b.

Explore fractions while you help yourself to 1/3 of a chocolate cake and wash it down with 1/2 a glass of orange juice! Create your own fractions using fun interactive objects. Match shapes and numbers to earn stars in the fractions games. Challenge yourself on any level you like. Try to collect lots of stars!

In this activity, learners create and experiment with wind tubes. These tubes are a playful and inventive way to explore the effect that moving air has on objects. Construction uses everyday materials such as a fan and embroidery hoops. It's fun to make things fly out of or float in the tubes, and to adjust the tubes to change the way the objects fly. The activity requires a significant amount of time and resources to build and may require adult help in construction. Experimentation with the wind tubes is engaging for a wide age range of learners.