Create a New Section and Your First Assignment

With your students enrolled and your gradebook trimmed to the categories you teach, it’s time to build your first real content: a section for the current month and an assignment inside it. In the elementary Sleedu courses, sections are months — August, September, October — matching the way elementary teachers actually plan. This guide walks through renaming a section, creating a reading assignment, setting its dates and points, and connecting it to the right gradebook category. The example is a 3rd Grade course; the steps are the same for any elementary grade.

Step 1 — Turn on Edit mode

At the top right of your course, flip the Edit mode switch on. Nothing in a course can be added or renamed until this switch is on, and it’s the first thing to check whenever a button seems to be missing.

Step 2 — Rename the section to the current month

Your course comes with sections named 1st Month, 2nd Month, and so on. Click the pencil icon next to a section name (or click the name itself), type the real month — for example, August — and press Enter to save. Press Escape if you want to cancel.

Step 3 — Add an activity to the section

Inside your renamed month, click the round + button on the dashed line and choose Activity or resource. In the chooser that opens, pick Assignment.

Step 4 — Name the assignment and write the directions

Give the assignment a clear name students will recognize, and type the directions in the Description box. Keep directions short and concrete — one thing to do per sentence.

💡 Check “Display description on course page.” For young students, this puts the directions right on the course page, so they can read what to do without clicking into the assignment first. One less click, one less place to get lost.

Step 5 — Set the dates

Open the Availability section and set three things:

Allow submissions from — when students can start turning work in.
Due date — when the work is due. Late work is marked late but still accepted.
Remind me to grade by — a date Sleedu uses to remind you, not students.

Leave Cut-off date unchecked. A cut-off slams the door completely — after it passes, students cannot submit at all. In elementary, you almost always want the door left open for the student who was absent or needed extra time.

Step 6 — Set the points

Scroll to the Grade section. Set the Type to Point and enter the Maximum grade — the number of points the assignment is worth. Leave the grading method on Simple direct grading. Grade to pass is optional; you can leave it blank.

💡 If you see a red warning like “The grade to pass can not be greater than the maximum possible grade,” it means the Grade to pass number is bigger than the assignment’s maximum points. Lower it below the maximum — or simply clear the box — and the warning disappears.

Step 7 — Pick the grade category

Still in the Grade section, open the Grade category dropdown and choose the category this assignment belongs to — for a phonics task, that’s Reading: Foundational Skills. This one choice is what files the assignment into the right column of your gradebook, so the grade lands where it belongs automatically.

💡 This dropdown is your whole gradebook connection. Every category you kept visible in Gradebook setup appears here. If you forget to pick one, the grade lands in “Uncategorised” — easy to fix later, but easier to pick the right category now.

Step 8 — Save

Scroll to the bottom and click Save and return to course. Your assignment now sits inside its month, and a matching column has appeared in your gradebook under the category you chose.

✅ You are done when: your section is named after the current month, your assignment appears inside it with its directions visible on the course page, and the Grades tab shows a new column under the category you picked. Next up in the Start Here path: creating a question bank.

August 2, 2026

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Sleedu for Elementary Teachers