A menina pegou a tesoura da mesa e devolveu a cola no fim da aula.

Portuguese often uses the full noun instead of a subject pronoun, especially when introducing or clearly identifying who did the action.

• A menina pegou... e devolveu... = The girl took... and returned...
• You could say Ela pegou..., but then ela would depend more on previous context.

Using a menina makes the sentence clear and natural on its own.

Both are possible, but they mean slightly different things.

• A menina = the girl
• Uma menina = a girl

With a menina, the sentence sounds like the speaker and listener already know which girl is being talked about, or the girl is specific in the context.

They are in the preterite tense, which in Brazilian Portuguese is commonly used for completed actions in the past.

• pegou = took / picked up
• devolveu = returned / gave back

They are both third-person singular forms, matching a menina.

Infinitives:

• pegar → pegou
• devolver → devolveu

Because Portuguese does not need to repeat the subject if it is still clear.

So:

• A menina pegou a tesoura da mesa e devolveu a cola...

naturally means:

• The girl took the scissors from the table and returned the glue...

The subject of devolveu is still a menina. Repeating it would be possible, but unnecessary:

• A menina pegou a tesoura da mesa e a menina devolveu a cola...

That sounds repetitive.

Yes. Pegar is a very flexible verb in Portuguese, and its meaning depends a lot on context.

Common meanings include:

• to take
• to pick up
• to get
• to catch

In this sentence, pegou a tesoura da mesa most naturally means took / picked up the scissors from the table.

This is a very common learner question.

In Portuguese, tesoura is normally treated as a singular noun when referring to one pair of scissors.

• a tesoura = the scissors
• uma tesoura = a pair of scissors
• duas tesouras = two pairs of scissors

So even though English uses a plural-looking word, Portuguese usually uses the singular.

Da mesa means from the table here.

It is a contraction of:

• de + a = da

So:

• pegou a tesoura da mesa = took the scissors from the table

In other contexts, de + noun can sometimes mean other things, such as of or from, but here from the table is the natural reading.

Yes. In this sentence, cola means glue.

That word can also mean cheating / cheat sheet in school contexts, but here the surrounding words make glue the obvious meaning because the sentence mentions classroom objects like tesoura and mesa.

Also, devolver means to return / give back, so:

• devolveu a cola = returned the glue

Because Portuguese often uses articles with nouns where English may or may not use them, especially when talking about specific objects.

Here, the speaker is referring to particular classroom items:

• a tesoura = the scissors
• a cola = the glue

If you removed the articles, the sentence would sound unnatural in standard Portuguese.

It breaks down like this:

• no = em + o = in the
• fim = end
• da = de + a = of the
• aula = class / lesson

So literally:

• no fim da aula = at the end of the class

In natural English, that is usually at the end of class or at the end of the lesson.

Because Portuguese normally needs a preposition here.

• no fim da aula = at the end of class

Without no, the phrase would not work naturally in this sentence. The preposition is part of how Portuguese expresses time in this kind of structure.

You may also hear similar expressions such as:

• no final da aula
• ao fim da aula

But no fim da aula is very common and natural in Brazilian Portuguese.

Yes. In context, pegou can suggest either:

• took the scissors from the table
• picked up the scissors off the table

Both are very close in meaning here. Portuguese does not always force the same distinction that English sometimes makes between take and pick up.

A simple learner-friendly pronunciation is:

• pegou ≈ peh-GOH

The stress is on the last syllable: -gou.

Likewise:

• devolveu ≈ deh-vol-VEH-ooh
  with the stress on veu

Exact pronunciation varies a bit by region, but the stressed syllables are important:

• peGOU
• devolVEU

It is quite similar to English word order:

• A menina = subject
• pegou = verb
• a tesoura = object
• da mesa = prepositional phrase
• e devolveu = and returned
• a cola = object
• no fim da aula = time expression

So the structure is fairly straightforward for an English speaker. The main challenges are usually the articles, the contractions like da and no, and the exact meanings of verbs like pegar and devolver.