This cluster includes the following access points.
Vetted resources educators can use to teach the concepts and skills in this topic.
| Name |
Description |
| Gr. K Lesson 2-Everglades Animals : | Students will revisit the Everglades discussing the similarities and differences between some of the animals that were presented in lesson one. They will continue to color and build their Everglades class book. Students will draw and write the similarities and differences using a Comparing Everglades Animals worksheet. Everglades Animals is lesson 2 out of 3. |
| A Home for All: | This unit opens with a walking field trip to a local community pond. In this Project-Based Learning experience students explore their local environment and describe the different habitats for plants and animals. The class will create a KWL Chart and Word Web for habitats. Individually, students will write an informative report about a chosen animal and its habitat. As teams, students will sort and present animal/plant cards according to their given habitat/environment. Students will individually create and present a habitat using a diorama for a chosen plant/animal. |
| Making Friends with Harry and Willy and Carrothead: | Through a story about three boys who become friends, children learn the importance of understanding that people who are different have strengths. This lesson focuses on friendship, self-confidence, and dealing with conflicts and teasing. This lesson addresses the following literacy skills: ask and answer questions about details and unknown words in text and write an opinion. |
| Lights Out: An Investigation of Day and Night: | In this lesson, students explore the differences between day and night by creating a class mural, using Science Notebooks, and going outdoors to experience day and night with their senses! |
| Monkey Business: A Problem: | In this close reading lesson, the teacher will read aloud Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina. Students will answer text-dependent questions and explain the meaning of new vocabulary. They will identify sight words and choral read repetitive parts of the text. Students will identify the setting, characters, and important events (including the problem and solution) and record these on a story map. They will retell the story and create a tri-fold book with illustrations and sentences explaining the beginning, middle, and end of the story. After analyzing the text, students will draw and dictate or write to explain the problem and solution in the text. |
| Be a Star Writer!: | Students will begin by discussing the difference between letters, words, and sentences followed by a reading of The Alphabet Tree by Leo Lionni. After partaking in a fun sentence strip activity, students will be asked to practice their star writing skills by writing a sentence about a time that they were happy. |
| The Kissing Hand and A Pocket Full of Kisses: Compare and Contrast: | In this close reading lesson, students will compare and contrast the actions of the characters in two of Audrey Penn's beloved books, The Kissing Hand and A Pocket Full of Kisses. They will answer text-dependent questions, and they will describe and sequence story elements as they analyze the two books. Students will truly enjoy interacting with these two delightful stories! |
| Five Little Monkeys: Comparing and Contrasting: | In this close reading lesson, students will compare and contrast the actions of the characters in two of Eileen Christelow's beloved books, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed and Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree. They will answer text-dependent questions and describe story elements as they analyze the two books. Students will truly enjoy interacting with these two delightful stories! |
| If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Take Him to School: Comparing and Contrasting: | In this close reading lesson, students will compare and contrast the actions of the characters in two of Laura Numeroff's beloved books, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and If You Take a Mouse to School. They will answer text-dependent questions, and they will describe and sequence story elements as they analyze the two books. Students will truly enjoy interacting with these two delightful stories! |
| Colors All Around Us: Using Colors to Describe Our World: | In this lesson, students will use the beautiful text Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger to explore how an author uses color words and illustrations to describe various real-world objects. They will identify and explain how the descriptive words provide meaning and how the illustrations support the text. Students will brainstorm real-life objects that can be described and classified using color words and write an expository piece to describe those objects. |
| Calling All Authors!: | In this lesson, students are engaged in a science project where the local library is hosting a book writing contest. Students will brainstorm ideas, work in rotating center stations, complete checklists and create a nonfiction book about how plant and animals are alike and different featuring what they learned about plants and animals during the lesson. |
| Sequential Story Tellers: | In this lesson, students will become story sequencers as they participate in whole group, partner, and independent activities. Students will recall important events from the story The Little Red Hen and help generate a class story to demonstrate their understanding of beginning, middle, and end before completing their summative assessment. At the end of the lesson students will become authors of their own narrative when they write a sequential story of a special event. They will use suggestions and revisions from their peers and teacher to create a final draft of their narrative that will be shared with the class. |
| Let's Be Scientists: Notebooking with a Purpose: | In this lesson, students learn about one of the jobs a scientist does: keeping a notebook or journal. The students will earn a procedure for completing an accurate Science Notebook entry. The teacher can follow this process throughout the year to develop students who are proficient in Science Notebooking. |
| The Grouchy Ladybug and The Mixed-Up Chameleon: | In this multi-day lesson, students will engage in a variety of literacy activities while reading The Grouchy Ladybug and The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle. Students will answer text-dependent questions as they describe the characters, setting, and important events in the story. They will complete a story map and story sequence organizer and use them to retell what happened at the beginning, middle, and end of each story. Finally, they will use the two graphic organizers to plan their own narrative about what happens next to one of the characters. |
| Do You Like Green Eggs and Ham?: | In this 5-day lesson, students will engage in a variety of activities using the beloved Dr. Seuss books, Green Eggs and Ham and Wacky Wednesday. Students will explain the roles of the author and illustrator of a story. They will identify rhyming words in the stories and produce additional words that rhyme. Students will answer text-dependent questions to complete a story map and sequencing graphic organizer about each story. Using the graphic organizers, students will retell the stories. Finally, students will choose their favorite Dr. Seuss book and write an opinion statement telling why the book is their favorite. |
| Going Camping: | In this lesson, students will learn about camping by reading stories about familiar characters that have gone camping, including Little Critter, Fred and Ted, and Curious George. Students will learn about how to make a camping list and compare and contrast the experiences of the characters in the stories using a Venn Diagram. They will create an opinion explaining what they think are the most important items to take camping. |
| Gingerbread Boy or Gingerbread Girl?: | This is a fun lesson where students will be asked to compare the characters two popular gingerbread tales using a graphic organizer. Then, they will write an opinion sentence explaining which book was their favorite and why. |
| Supermarket Sorting: | In this lesson, in a hands-on activity, students will practice sorting food items from the grocery store into different categories. The teacher will read aloud Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert and send students on a scavenger hunt to find and record pictures of fruits and vegetables that are hung around the room. Students will be asked to provide an opinion of what they think is the best fruit or vegetable during a writing assignment and explain why they like it. Then each student will draw a picture of that food on a paper plate to display with their writing. |
| Beach Sort: | In this lesson, students will have hands-on experience with categorization skills, by sorting objects commonly taken on a beach trip. Students will practice describing objects, sorting objects into categories, and verbalizing category concepts. Students will also practice discussing opinions about objects by writing a Beach Sorting Book. |
| An Unlikey Friend or Foe: | In this lesson, students will listen to The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle and The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf and will analyze the main character's actions and reactions to their adventures by comparing and contrasting using a Venn diagram. Students will also be given an opportunity to think and write about times that they have been grumpy or peaceful using grade-appropriate conventions of writing and phonetic spelling. |
| What’s So Great About Kevin Henkes?: | In this lesson, students will serve as researchers of the beloved author, Kevin Henkes. After reading three of Henkes’s most popular books, students will complete a chart of story elements, record their opinion about each book, and create an opinion writing piece to inform others of their favorite Kevin Henkes book and why they like it best. |
| The Fire Wheels: | The Fire Wheels MEA provides students with a problem in which they must work as a team to design a procedure to select the best toy car for a company to sell. Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom. |
| Vegetables…in Cupcakes?!: | In teams, students will make decisions about how to select the best bakery based on various cupcake characteristics (e.g., taste, smell). Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom. |
| Fairy Tale Maps: | Students will begin to understand the concept of maps by describing the path that Little Red Riding Hood took on the way to Grandma's house. |
| It's All in the Details: | In this multi-day lesson, students will learn about American holidays as they analyze grade-appropriate informational text. Students will learn to identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book and their text features. They will also learn how to use the text features (title, headings, and illustrations) to predict the topic of the book. As the teacher reads the book, students will confirm the topic and identify important details, recording them on a graphic organizer. Finally, students will use details from the graphic organizer to draw, dictate, and/or write an expository piece about the topic of the text. |
| Having Fun with Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie DePaola: | In this lesson students will “read” the wordless book Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie DePaola and complete several activities. Students will create a graph of their favorite breakfast items, discuss the story elements of the text, and help Tomie DePaola out by adding their own words to his story by creating a new class book. |
| Let's Get Moving!: | Students will move like their favorite animal and identify what the movement is called reviewing verbs. Then they will create a chart about ways that animals move and interact with a read aloud as they search for more movement ideas. Students will end the lesson by completing an opinion sentence about their favorite animal movement and why it is their favorite. |
| Purpose and Particulars: Presidents: | In this lesson, students will become informative investigators through whole group and independent activities about presidents and Presidents' Day. Students will identify basic similarities and differences between multiple texts to contribute to a class-generated Venn Diagram as well as an independent Venn Diagram. Students will practice generating ideas and details for a class-created informative writing piece and by creating their own informative writing piece based on what they learned through the lessons' texts. |
| Sorting Recycling: | In this MEA, students will sort recycling material based on the shape, name the shapes, and decide on what recycling bin would be the best for the city to choose. Students will write and draw a picture describing which recycling bin they chose.
Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom. |
| What's the Big Idea?: | In this multi-day lesson, students will learn about American symbols as they analyze grade-appropriate informational text. Students will learn to identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book and their text features. They will also learn how to use the text features (title, headings, and illustrations) to predict the topic of the book. As the teacher reads the book, students will confirm the topic and identify important details, recording them on a graphic organizer. Finally, students will use details from the graphic organizer to draw, dictate, and/or write an expository piece about the topic of the text. |
| Wild about Authors and Illustrators: | In this lesson, students learn about the roles of authors and illustrators through read-alouds, charades, and book-writing. Students will have an opportunity to act out the roles of illustrators and authors. They will learn how to describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in a story. Students will also identify the beginning, middle, and end in popular picture books and will write and illustrate a simple narrative with a partner. |
