LEARNING CENTER
Our Learning Center provides worksheets, activity pages, information resources, ideas for parents, links to interactive learning sites, and more. Resources are grouped by grade level and by broad subject area. Under each grade level, we provide a selection that includes printable activities that can be easily used offline as well as online interactive learning resources. The online resources are designed to be engaged online and require a reliable internet connection.

Pre-K - grade 1
LITERACY AND LITERATURE
  • Award-winning storyteller Joe Hayes tells traditional stories from New Mexico in English and Spanish in a series of videos. Known for their wit and humor, these tales are a wonderful way to engage and delight young children. 
  • Early Literacy - Pre-Reading Practice - This one page printable helps children get started with reading a simple story that mixes pictures and words and lets children "share" the early reading experience.
  • Practice Words​- A few words and images on a printable page help children relate letters, words, and concepts. 
  • Tracing sentences -  Tracing helps children learn letters, words, writing, and sentence structure. 
  • Tumblebooks - Tumblebooks is an amazing resource of free online audio children's books. The site provides a rich selection for multiple early literacy skills and reading levels, including classics such as Winnie the Pooh, story books, read-alongs, early readers, and Tumbletunes sing-along books. You can access all of the books in the collection through the Villanueva Library Catalog  Click on the Tumblebooks link at the bottom of the Electronic Resources listing. 
ARTS AND CULTURE
  • Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Coloring Book- A printable coloring book based on information and images from native culture.  
  • ​Grandparent Portraits​- A simple drawing activity engages young children in creating portraits of their grandparents. Drawing the portrait provides an opportunity for children to talk about their grandparents with other family members. This exercise can also be done on any clean sheet of paper.
  • Songs about New Mexico- From the New Mexico Music Commission, this is a collection of performances featuring songs about New Mexico selected from a variety of musical genres and styles.  Appropriate for all ages. 
  • Our Fair New Mexico - A Virtual Concert Series- "The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), in partnership with state museums, historic sites, and cultural institutions, presents “Our Fair New Mexico,” a virtual concert series featuring musicians living in New Mexico." Video-recorded live. Wonderful.
MATH
  • Learn to Count A counting practice sheet that can be printed and used by child and caregiver together. Simple written directions for caregivers on the page suggest touching each image as you count with the child. 
  • Count to 10 - A practice worksheet helps children learn to count by filling in the missing numbers.
  • Shapes​​​ A simple line drawing containing basic shapes help children see and identify different shapes within a larger picture.  May also be colored. 
  • Tumblemath - The partner site to Tumblebooks, Tumblemath offers free online book resources that introduce early math concepts and embed basic math functions within childhood read-aloud stories.  You can access all of the books in the collection through the Villanueva Library Catalog  Click on the Tumblemath link halfway down the Electronic Resources listing. Fantastic. 
SCIENCE AND NATURE
  • Listening Walk - A listening walk is a simple activity to do with children and is especially well suited for. an outdoor activity.  You can enhance the walk by making animal ears before to help children understand the importance of sounds in the natural world. Listening helps children build skills for hearing and learning language.
  • What Would Happen If? - This learn at home activity uses simple questions and observations about easy to find insects as a basis for introducing the experimental method at its most basic level. - learning how to ask a question and test it.  From the California Academy of Sciences.  
  • Plant Parts - A printable worksheet helps children learn the names of the different parts of a plant while becoming familiar with the words for those different parts.
  • Coloring Objects Outside- Coloring pictures helps build observation, fine motor skills, and hand-eye coordination.  Help children learn about the natural world by talking about the objects as they draw.
  • Animal Tracks Activity​​- Printable instructions for an engaging activity that allows children to relate to the animal world in direct, tactile ways while becoming more aware of the differences in the shape and tracks made by feet. 
  • Washing Hands- Always important, this activity is especially so at this moment. 
HISTORY AND HUMANITIES
  • New Mexico Historic Sites Virtual Classroom​ - Programming provided by various historic sites across the state spanning K-12 age groups, the virtual classrooms offer a rich array of engaging learning materials, most of which include pre-recorded presentations followed by activities designed for the different age groups. Varied, engaging, professional educational resources from eight participating sites including Coronado, Lincoln, and Fort Seldon. 

Grades 2-3

LITERACY AND LITERATURE
  • Ernest and the Elevator - This printable reading comprehension activity targets reading skills for mid-level second grade readers. The activity includes a story followed by three simple groups of questions.  For students at a lower reading level, the story may be read aloud with a caregiver and the questions discussed and answered orally. New vocabulary words are highlighted at the top of the story and answers are provided on the last page for reference.  For eager readers, a second activity featuring a story about building a snowman is available here.
  • The History of Chocolate- This printable reading comprehension activity targets reading skills for mid-level third grade readers. The activity includes a story followed by questions in multiple choice and both short and extended written response formats.  New vocabulary words are highlighted at the top of the story and answers are provided on the last page for reference.  For eager readers, a second activity focuses on identifying cause and effect in a fable about birds nests.
  • Little Dolphin - An early reader (Level 1), complete with pictures, that can be printed and read offline.
  • Mega Machines - An early reader, complete with pictures, that can be printed and read offline. This reader is longer and has more complex vocabulary than Little Dolphin. 
ARTS AND CULTURE
  • Musical Instruments of the Pueblo People-This educational video from the Jemez Historic Site, introduces children to the musical instruments of the Pueblo culture. Includes authentic demonstrations of several of the instruments as well as clear explanations of how the instruments are made. Uses instruments to introduce other traditional practices such as trade. Very engaging.
MATH AND TECHNOLOGY
  • Fractions - This printable worksheet for second graders helps students recognize and visualize the way in which halves, thirds, and quarters combine to make a whole.
  • Numbers in Expanded Form - This printable worksheet for second grade level helps students understand how numbers represent a combination of different place values by writing numbers in expanded form.
  • Place Value Worksheet-Building - Understanding place value is an important skill mastered in third grande math. This printable worksheet helps students practice and understand the way in which numbers represent the different place values. This additional worksheet practices the related skill of putting together different place values to form a number.
  • Multiplication Tables - These printables include practice sheets for multiplications facts for 2 and 3, 4 and 6, and 5 and 10. 
SCIENCE AND NATURE
  • Comparing Bird Calls - This site introduces young learners to the complexity and variation of different  bird sounds. The site provides recordings of the many calls and sounds made by the different species of birds.  Listening to birds helps develop children develop careful listening skills and while teaching them about the complexity of animal voices.    
HISTORY AND HUMANITIES
  • The Palace of Governors "Points of Inquiry" exhibit provides a series of Native American photographic portraits from the 19th and 20th centuries. The portraits offer a starting point for talking about portraits as historical records and for comparing contemporary family portraits to early Native American family pictures. They also provide the opportunity to discuss elements of the history of New Mexico with children. ​

Grades 4-5

LITERACY AND LITERATURE
  • Oranges Everywhere - This fourth grade level reading comprehension selection fand activity introduces children to the transportation of food products and the important role that agriculture plays in global economies.
  • The Merchants Caravan - A reading about early merchant trade caravans targeting grade 4 reading levels, this selection provides reading comprehension questions related to cause and effect and interpretation.
  • Shark Facts -  A  brief fifth grade reading comprehension passage about sharks with questions at the end.
ARTS AND CULTURE
  • Upcycled Self-Portrait - In this art activity, youth will use recyclables to create self-portrait sculptures. This activity supports the development of creative thinking, self-awareness, problem-solving and perseverance.
  • Sewn Stories - This activity uses fabric, scissors, and glue to make a picture that also tells a story.
MATH AND TECHNOLOGY
SCIENCE AND NATURE
  • ​About Soils - This reading and reading comprehension activity helps students learn about soils and their important relationship to other natural sciences including geology, biology, and geography. 
HISTORY AND HUMANITIES
Cinco de Mayo - This brief history introduces young readers to the historical origins of the holiday celebrated throughout New Mexico. Reading comprehension questions included at the end allow students to reflect on the meaning of the holiday.
​Every Picture Tells a Story uses photographic images from the New Mexico Office of Archeological Studies, together with a series of directed questions, to help children learn to look closely at visual information and draw conclusions from what they see.  An effective exercise in  connecting images to story that ends with students taking a picture of their own story.

Grades 6, 7, & 8

LITERACY AND LITERATURE
  • National Book Award winner and New York Times best-seller, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie follows the experience of young man who leaves the reservation to attend an all-white school and understanding of his own character that he gains in the process.  The link provides the full text of the book, to read online or print and read offline.
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is the first in a trilogy set in the future. Engages young readers deeply in timeless coming of age themes of survival and finding ones place in society.  The complete text in chapters; click on the green "Next" button in the bottom right hand corner to move to the next chapter.
ARTS AND CULTURE
  • Color and Line - This activity book from the New Mexico Museum of Art introduces young learners to the concepts and words used to talk about color and line, including the color wheel, warm and cool colors,  tint and hue, and texture and shape of different lines. Includes some activities to stimulate young artists to think about color and line in new ways.
MATH AND TECHNOLOGY
  • Kahn Academy remains one of the best sources for mathematics learning.  Known for their careful segmentation and sequencing of topics and their short, simple, focused lessons, Kahn Academy can make any topic in math seem surprisingly easy.  For middle school students, explore not only the topics by grade level for 6th, 7th, and 8th, but also the "Get Ready Courses" for 6th, 7th and 8th graders, which reviews topics that help prepare students for math in the coming year. 
SCIENCE AND NATURE
This collection of short videos, created and presented by youth, are part of Our Hungry Planet, a unit from the California Academy of Sciences that focuses on the "environmental issues related to the food we grow and eat" and "introduces students to the process of design thinking" as a tool for finding solutions.  Individual videos explore the Environmental Impact of Feeding the World, Urban Farming, Vertical Farming, Reducing Food Waste, and Food Choices. For more information, you can explore the complete unit, which includes additional videos and activities.
HISTORY AND HUMANITIES
  • The Columbian Exchange - This unit, from the Coronado National Monument, provides an educational video about the Columbian exchange and its extensive impact on the Americas in its early history. There is a follow-up activity to help students understand the elements of the exchange and how our current lives are still impacted by the changes that this early interaction brought. Most suitable for 7th or 8th graders.

​Resources for teachers

teach research skills with online scavenger hunts
Online scavenger challenge students to find information by providing step by step "clues" organized to teach online research skills. Targeting Middle School students, these scavenger hunts focus on "Endangered Species" and "Myths, Legends, and Tales." Using these as models, educators can develop their own scavenger hunts around different information and other skills. You can access Gale Middle School Resources through El Portal link on the Villanueva Library catalog page.
critical thinking lesson plan using digital resources
Geared for grades 6-8 over 2-4 class periods, this critical thinking project focuses on developing careful reading, analysis, and argument skills using online resources Topics are suggested but others could be used based on Gale resources. The activity could easily be adapted for high school students. You can access Gale Middle School Resources through El Portal link on the Villanueva Library catalog page.
online PROJECT - understanding vaccines
A timely topic for information and classroom discussion, this single period vaccine activity page could be adapted or expanded to include discussion of the  vaccine development and deployment for COVID-19. You can access Gale Middle School Resources through El Portal link on the Villanueva Library catalog page. Login with your Villanueva library account to access any of the El Portal resources through the Villanueva Library.
Learning module - child labor
This curated learning module focuses on child labor and targets middle school students in activity and reading levels. Items in the module include: a video to introduce the subject and engage learners; a summary article to provide basic information; images for analysis of visual information; primary accounts (descriptions of work written by children), and opposing opinions. Questions are provided for each item.  

Story listening and storytelling

Audible stories
Listening to books and stories read aloud is one of the best ways to build early literacy and lifelong language skills. Audible is providing free access to audio versions of children's books and stories. Stories range from those intended for young listeners to books for teens. Take advantage of this opportunity to listen.  A selection of books is available in Spanish.
Stories written and read by students
Moth Radio's collection of stories written and read aloud by students. Stories are about five minutes long and many explore issues of personal interest to young people. An excellent resource for sparking interest in telling stories from your own life for middle school students. Wonderful, funny, and inspiring.
The Learning Center is supported in part by a generous grant from the New Mexico Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities made to the El Valle Community Center.

The Villanueva Library and the Community Center are a single non-profit 501c3.