In this unit, students explore the relationship between living things and their environment and how the environment can both positively and negatively impact a species’ ability to survive. Using the Next Generation Science Standards as a guide, students will learn about different species, what they need for survival, their life cycle, and how they have adapted for survival. Then students will be challenged to create arguments that explain why some organisms are able to survive well, some survive less well, and others can’t survive at all in certain habitats. Through this unit, along with others in the sequence, students will use the scientific information they learn to think critically about the world around them.

The Science of Living Things texts were chosen as mentor texts for this unit because the author, Bobbie Kalman, uses text features and clear language to clearly communicate complex concepts about the animal kingdom, life cycles, and animal adaptations. As readers, students will be challenged to constantly ask and answer questions about key details in the text, explicitly referring to the text to support an answer or a question. Over the course of the unit, students will also deepen their understanding of how Bobbie Kalman uses text features to not only organize information, but to help a reader learn new information and facts about a subject. Students will also work on using context clues to figure out the meaning of genre-specific vocabulary, find the main idea of a section, and explain cause and effect in relation to scientific concepts.

Folk tales and fairy tales are of interest to and part of the language arts curriculum for young learners. This lesson supports the study of this genre and the study of irregular patterns and letter-sound relationships related to decoding and spelling. After reading the folk tale Jack and the Beanstalk, students discuss the word giant and its beginning sound. Students then create their own lists of words that begin with the same sound. Then, students are introduced to words with the soft g sound and create a new list of words with this beginning sound. As a culminating activity, students work individually or in groups to categorize animal names into groups according to their beginning g sound.

Students analyze the concepts of identity, stereotyping, and discrimination by reading picture books; identify how these concepts are dealt with in each book; and discuss concrete actions to stop discrimination.

Working in small groups, students read and discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir "Night" and then take turns assuming the teacher role, as the class works with four different comprehension strategies.

This resource presents the Virgin Islands Standards of Achievement at a Glance in one folder on Google Docs. Here, you can access the VISA standards for one grade or several grades as Adobe Acrobat PDFs. The resource also provides all the standards for K-12 in one PDF.

This interactive tool allows students to create Venn diagrams that contain two or three overlapping circles, enabling them to organize their information logically.

The Virgin Islands State Literacy Plan (VISLP) provides education leaders with research-supported principles, guidelines, and recommendations for implementing best first practices in Tier 1 for effective literacy teaching and learning. The plan also assists education leaders to consider how best to integrate the Kallaloo Cultural Framework into school-based literacy practices to ensure students enrolled in VIDE places of education are prepared for further education, careers, and lifelong learning. The principles, practices, and assessment information are intended to assist leaders in ensuring they are able to support school leaders to develop school-based processes and practices for literacy teaching and learning that are research-informed and supported.The Roadmaps shared here align to the Virgin Islands Department of Education's State Literacy Plan.  With a focus on literacy as a shared responsibilty, these customized roadmaps offer strategies for integrating literacy in Mathematics, Science, History, the Arts, and the Health & Phyiscal Education classrooms.

Students explore a variety of sources for information about voting. They evaluate the information to determine if it is fact or opinion, and then create a graffiti wall about voting.

Questions about weather clear up when students use what they learned from their books to create a presentation to share with the rest of the class.

Students analyze the elements of a novel in many different genres and then hyperlink these pieces together on student-constructed Websites.

Explore the similarities and differences among words typically considered synonyms with this tool that allows middle- and secondary-level students organize groups of words by connotation on one axis and by register on another.

Bookworms will enjoy the bytes they find in this lesson as they research and share information about online library services in places around the world.

Students use the faces and places they learn about in their research to write a biography about a contemporary or historical figure.

This lesson encourages young students to see themselves as writers with a message to convey. Three types of reports are provided to show what kindergartners and emergent writers can do.

Students build upon their knowledge of biographies to write their own autobiographical incident. After going through a process of revision, they use a rubric to assess their work.

Special edition! Students use ReadWriteThink tools to create magazines about prominent figures using a variety of writing genres and styles.

Students in Grades 5 through 12 read and respond to electronic books by using e-book tools and features, including digital note-taking capabilities.

Students apply and build their knowledge of letters and letter sounds as they play games and interact with letters online, creating their own ABC book as a final activity.