Implementation plan

Grades 3–5 Implementation Plan

Pacing, prerequisites, and extensions for the elementary band.

The activities

  • Grade 3 — Your First Digital Footprint. A new student left tracks all over the internet. Use the clues to solve four locks and clean up the trail. (TEKS §126.8)
  • Grade 4 — The Permanent Record. A student thought old posts would just disappear. They didn't. Crack four locks to learn why the internet remembers. (TEKS §126.9)
  • Grade 5 — Track the Trackers. Someone has been following a student across the internet — quietly, from site to site. Read the clues, solve four locks, and expose how the tracking works. (TEKS §126.10)

Pacing

  • One activity ≈ 25–40 minutes, including debrief. Younger classes may need two sittings.
  • Run one per grading period, or cluster them into a two-week digital-citizenship unit.
  • Order matches the grade sequence; each grade deepens footprint, etiquette, IP, and safety themes.

Prerequisites

  • A browser and the activity link. No accounts, installs, or logins.
  • Students should be comfortable reading short paragraphs and clicking/tapping tiles.
  • Teachers: skim the activity’s teacher launch page and the correlation guide first.

Extension & differentiation

  • Home-language pairs. Use the 🌐 picker so newcomers reason in their strongest language, then answer.
  • Author-a-clue. Students write a new clue (or a real-world example) for the skill they found hardest.
  • Reason aloud. Require a spoken/written justification before each lock check; grade the reasoning, not the click.
  • Connect to a class agreement on kindness and credit; revisit the footprint idea across the year.