Getting the Most from Unplugged Activities & Worksheets
Every Primer lesson includes an Unplugged step: a short, screen-free activity meant to get your student away from the device and practicing the skill with pencil and paper. If you've been skipping that part to save time, here's why it's worth the extra five minutes, plus how to turn any lesson into extra printable practice.
On this page
What Unplugged is
Unplugged is the third step in every lesson's five-step path (Lesson, Unplugged, Puzzle, Practice, Exit Ticket; see Inside a Lesson: A Full Walkthrough). It lists what's needed (often just pencil, paper, and sometimes crayons), gives numbered instructions, and ends with a Check My Work button once the activity is done. It's usually five to ten minutes, and it's built around the same skill the lesson just taught, so it's reinforcement, not busywork.
Stepping away from the screen matters for reasons that have nothing to do with screen time itself: writing a word out by hand, solving a math problem on paper, or narrating something out loud uses a different kind of memory than reading or clicking through a screen does. For students who struggle to stay engaged on a device, it's often the part of the lesson where things actually click.
Making a worksheet
Every Unplugged step also has a Make a Worksheet option, for students who want, or need, more practice than the built-in activity alone.
Clicking it generates a brand-new, personalized printable worksheet on the spot, built from that lesson's specific content, not a generic template. A short progress indicator shows encouraging status messages while it's being built.
The finished worksheet opens in a new tab with Download PDF and Answer Key options.
Answer keys are always visible to you as the parent. Whether your student can see the answer key themselves, and whether they're allowed to generate a worksheet at all without asking you first, are settings you control; see below.
Filling one out on iPad
The settings that control both
On a student's Format tab, under Permissions & Pacing, two toggles control this whole area:
- Unplugged practice activities: on by default. Turning it off keeps all practice on screen and removes the Unplugged step from new lessons.
- Let Students Create Worksheets: off by default. Turning it on lets your student generate a worksheet themselves, without asking you first. Answer keys always stay parent-only either way, and you can always create a worksheet for your student regardless of this setting.
If a student is motivated by extra practice and you trust them with the answer key staying hidden, turning on Let Students Create Worksheets is a small way to give them more ownership over their own learning.