Natural disasters such as volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires happen all over the world. Understanding how natural disasters happen and why helps children feel less anxious and more prepared. Therefore, this unit focuses on teaching students the science behind each natural disaster while also explaining what to do if they live in an area prone to a particular natural disaster. Over the course of the unit, students hear about many famous natural disasters, but the unit places more of an emphasis on how the disasters happen rather than exploring the devastation or destruction caused by previous natural disasters. The unit provides many opportunities for students to learn more about recent natural disasters, including a culminating research project.

The texts in this unit were chosen because of their wide variety of text features, content, and accessibility. Over the course of the unit, students will read texts that are very technical and rely heavily on text features, diagrams, and illustrations, as well as texts that are written as informational narratives. Students will be challenged to think about the structures the authors use to help the reader interact with and learn the content. Additionally, students will learn the importance of referring to specific details from the text and using those details to explain and teach back the newly learned material. This unit serves as the foundation for building strong reading habits and routines and setting high expectations for text consumption. Clear models should be included in the unit to help students build a deeper understanding of how to actively read and annotate informational texts for key ideas, text features, and vocabulary. This unit also serves as a launching point for strong discussions. Students will frequently be challenged to debate questions from the text; therefore, strong habits of discussion need to be introduced over the course of the unit.

WEEK 10, DAYS 1-5
Natural Disasters Research Project
We just finished reading about one type of natural disaster, earthquakes, and today we will discuss other types of natural disasters.
You will choose the one that interests you the most and conduct research to learn more information. To help you learn a little bit about the different types of natural disasters we are going to view a video. You will use a graphic organizer to jot notes about each natural disaster to help you decide which one you want to research and learn more about.
Today you are going to choose one natural disaster to begin researching.
Now that you have chosen your natural disaster you are going to start researching. We are going to use the same graphic organizer we always do, but we are going to use it to help make a plan and organize our notes. Students will work on researching their natural disaster.
Students will work on either finishing up gathering information OR choosing which information to share.
Students will work around the room on either their graphic organizer or their draft. completed their graphic organizer and add new details, facts, and definitions to their graphic organizer.

The NFL kicked off its new season last night with new safety measures that may lessen the chance of injury for players. Video, teacher page, and student handout included.

Informational text piece discussing how new NFL rules are making football safer. Student handout and video. High interest.

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, an early astronaut's experiences teach students that Newton's third law of motion—for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction—applies both on Earth and in outer space.

1st Grade Literacy

Nonfiction Texts

In this unit of study, students will be actively involved in a variety of literacy activities to help improve their reading of nonfiction texts.  The activities are center/rotation based.  The face-to-face teacher directed learning includes guided reading groups.  Groups are between 2 - 6 students and are based on guided reading levels.  Students not in a guided reading group will be rotating to different literacy centers, including a technology center using RAZ Kids (a reading program with books at specific reading levels).  In addition to the technology reading center, students also have a word work center, a parent led literacy activity center, a reading/listening center, and an art center.  The centers and teacher directed learning aim to improve literacy skills (reading and writing) for nonfiction texts.  The unit will last for 1 week and is one hour long for each day.

Students will develop their summarizing skills while learning about local history. They will learn to consider audience while selecting topics, conducting research and interviews, and writing historical markers for their town.

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students examine the nutritional content of different foods and learn about the health benefits and risks associated with the food choices they make.

John Locke’s treatise “An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government,” often called simply the Second Treatise of Government is probably the most influential work of political theory in the English language. Locke’s essay was widely read in the English-speaking world of the eighteenth century, and his arguments about government, consent, and property rights (just to name three of its main topics) became fundamental to the way that western people have conceived of these ideas ever since. Locke (1632-1704) provided some of the intellectual underpinning for the American revolution of the 1770s and 80s; many of the writers who supported the revolt against Parliament and the British Crown, such as Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine, had read Locke, and you can see his emphasis on the need for government to have the consent of the governed reflected in their works.

Bradford’s account of the early years of the Plymouth colony remained in manuscript form until the 1890s, when it was finally transcribed and printed for general publication. This edition is taken from the Project Gutenberg transcription of the 1898 edition.

Students create a soundtrack for a novel that they have read, as they engage in such traditional reading strategies as predicting, visualizing, and questioning.

It's important to "hook" readers at a story's beginning, but it's equally important to keep them interested. In this lesson, students learn to write effective conclusions to their own stories.

Students use fractured fairy tales to practice revision and editing as separate activities when they write their own versions of fairy tales.

Students read and analyze fairy tales, identifying their common elements. They then write their own "fractured" fairy tales by changing one of the literary elements found in the original.

This quick reference draws on What Works Clearinghouse™ practice guides to identify research-based instructional practices for supporting beginning readers, along with the level of evidence behind the practices and core literacy skills to target for early screening and progress monitoring.

In this unit, students explore the meaning of family, community, and identity by reading the core text One Crazy Summer. Through the eyes of eleven-year-old Delphine, readers experience life in Oakland, California, in 1968, the height of the Black Panther movement. Delphine and her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, spend a summer in Oakland visiting their estranged mother who sends them to spend their days at a camp run by the Black Panthers. Over the course of the summer, the girls learn about what it means to be part of a revolution, what the Black Panther Party was fighting for, and why the Black Panther Party was important during this time period. Through it all, they build confidence in themselves and their relationships with others as they learn to challenge and respond to social issues in the community. It is our hope that this unit, in conjunction with others in the series, will help students understand the way experiences shape our identities and beliefs, and how children can help bring about change in the community.

In reading, this unit continues to build on reading strategies and skills covered in previous units. It is assumed that students are able to quote or paraphrase accurately from the text, interpret figurative language, and summarize sections of the text. These skills should continue to be spiraled throughout the unit; however, the main focuses for this unit are determining theme and analyzing how it is developed over the course of the novel or poem, analyzing point of view and the impact it has on the way events are portrayed, and comparing characters and their responses to situations.

Isatou Ceesay observed a growing problem in her community where people increasingly disposed of unwanted plastic bags, which accumulated into ugly heaps of trash. She found a way to be the agent of change by recycling the bags and transforming her community. The resource includes a lesson plan/book card, a design challenge, and copy of a design thinking journal that provide guidance on using the book to inspire students' curiosity for design thinking. Maker Challenge: Use plastic bags to develop a new product (i.e. jump rope).

A document is included in the resources folder that lists the complete standards-alignment for this book activity.

This resource from the Institute for Education Sciences helps teachers and parents build children's phonological awareness. In this activity, students will take apart and put together onsets and rimes by matching picture puzzle pieces.

In this lesson, students build classroom community by exploring environmental print and a teacher-created display that focuses on a favorite book. They then create and share their own presentations.