This video shows primary students using Chaining, an instructional practice found in the K-2 Reading Foundations Skills Block. This instruction practice gives students targeted instruction for analyzing and decoding words with particular spelling patterns. One grapheme is changed in each successive word, and students analyze the first word to determine how it has changed as they decode the next word. The teacher gives and students decode the first word. After decoding each of the words in the chain, the teacher has students spell the words from memory, which reinforces letter-sound connections and lets the teacher check for understanding. There are optional extensions. This instructional practice is used in Kindergarten and 1st grade.

This video shows 1st graders participating in the end of cycle reading and spelling assessment with their teacher in our K-2 Reading Foundations Skills Block. It specifically shows the spelling portion. The teacher administers the assessment with a small group, evaluates their responses, and confers with each student to set an individual goal. End of cycle assessments are used throughout Kindergarten-2nd grade, typically weekly.

This video shows 1st graders experiencing "Engagement Text to Decodables," an instructional practice found in the K- Reading Foundations Skills Block, that engages students in a read-aloud of an engaging complex text before they work with a decodable text on the same topic. First the teacher reads the engagement text aloud, and may ask optional comprehension questions. Then students analyze high frequency words in the engagement text they likely would not be able to decode. Next students work with a partner to search for those same high frequency words in the decodable text. They then read the entire text with a partner to develop automaticity with the new high frequency words and to apply the letter-sound patterns they have already learned. Students then add the new high frequency words to the Word Wall. Finally, students reflect on their learning. This instructional practice is used in Kindergarten (starting in Cycle 13) and throughout 1st and 2nd grades.

This video shows 1st graders using Interactive Writing, an instructional practice in the K-2 Reading Foundations Skills Block that helps students apply their growing knowledge of letter-sound connections to write sentences using familiar spelling patterns and high frequency words in a shared sentence. First, the teacher reads aloud an intentionally designed sentence. Students tap out each word. Then students analyze the sounds in each word. Finally they reread the completed sentence. This instructional practice is used (with slight variations) in kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades.

This video shows 1st graders using Phonemic Blending and Segmentation, an instructional practice in the K-2 Reading Foundations Skills Block that helps them understand letter-sound combinations and how that helps them read and spell words. Students first tap out the sounds in a word on their fingers, then blend the sounds together. Next, they review what each sound looks and feels like in the mouth (“articulatory gestures”). Finally, they analyze the oral and auditory connections in the word they began with. This instructional practice is used in both Kindergarten and 1st grade.

This unit serves as the foundational unit for establishing both classroom culture and the routines of the literature block. In this unit, students discover what it means to be part of a classroom community and how they can make the classroom community a fun place to be. Over the course of the unit, students explore hopes and dreams, how to be polite and treat others with respect, and why it’s important to be proud of themselves and who they are. The unit gives students a chance to project their own feelings onto characters in order to make sense of how they are feeling. Through a variety of extension activities, students will be pushed to think about how they can use what they learned from the characters in their own lives and in the classroom community. The final products of many of the lessons and activities should be displayed and reinforced daily as student-friendly reminders of what it means to be part of a joyful community.

In this unit, students are exposed to familiar stories with predictable patterns and illustrations. Exposure to predictable texts is incredibly important for beginning readers as they begin to explore the world of reading independently. Predictable texts are incredibly engaging for students, allowing them to anticipate words, phrases, and events on their own and better follow the storyline sequence of a story. The story patterns also allow students to try and read the stories on their own, using the repetitive texts and pictures as a guide for either reading or pretending to read the story. Predictable texts are also incredibly important for exposing students to phonological awareness concepts in context, particularly rhyme, rhythm, and fluency. In order for students to reap these benefits, however, they need to deeply engage with the stories. This means that the stories need to be read, reread, retold, and reread some more so that students are able to build the confidence they need to pretend to read or read the text on their own. Within the context of this unit, students are only exposed to the text once; therefore, it is the responsibility of the teacher to find ways to bring the stories to life in other parts of the day so that students are able to reap the rewards of engaging with predictable texts or, if necessary, to slow down the pacing of the unit in order to include multiple readings of a text.

In this unit, students begin a year-long exploration of the seasons and how weather, plants, and animals are different depending on the season by studying the beauties of fall and fall harvests. Students launch the unit by setting up an ongoing weather experiment in order to understand the patterns of fall and how weather changes during fall. While gathering ongoing data about the changing weather in fall, students will learn and observe what happens to leaves in the fall and notice the difference between various types of leaves. In the second half of the unit, students explore the different harvests of fall, particularly apples and pumpkins, and discuss the basic life cycles of both. This unit is a chance for students to stop and think about the changes that are happening in the natural world around them and why the changes happen. It is our hope that by the end of the year, after studying winter and spring in subsequent units, students will have a deeper understanding of the unique features of each season.

In this unit, students explore and experience the works of four award-winning authors and illustrators; Grace Lin, Yuyi Morales, Monica Brown, and Jerry Pinkney. Students learn about each author or illustrator’s life and his or her inspiration for becoming an author and/or illustrator. Students will think critically and make connections between the author or illustrator’s life and the stories he or she writes or illustrates, and how each author’s unique personality is reflected in the words or pictures. By studying a wide variety of authors and illustrators, it is our hope that the foundations will be set for a lifelong interest in reading and books. Author studies help students develop a deeper attachment to books while also noticing and identifying the many different ways in which authors write. It is also our hope that students will use the authors in this unit as writing mentors, mimicking the author’s style while also building confidence in their own writing and unique ideas. In future units and grades, students will read additional award-winning stories written or illustrated by the different authors and illustrators from the unit.

In this unit, students explore the beauties of winter. In the first part of the unit, students learn about how snow forms and the different types of snow that fall in the winter. In the second part of the unit, students explore how animals survive in the winter and the ways in which animals meet their basic needs, even when the ground is covered with ice and snow. In the last part of the unit, students read a variety of Jan Brett texts and use what they have learned about snow and animals to make inferences about what is happening with the different winter animals in the text. By the end of the unit, students should have a strong grasp of what makes winter unique and the different ways animals survive in the winter. Due to the timing of this unit, it is our hope that students will have plenty of opportunities to interact with the vocabulary and content in the natural world around them.

In this unit, students begin to explore African American history and the civil rights movement. Students will begin the unit by thinking about the ways in which people are similar and different, including skin color, and how those differences should not define who we are or how we are treated. In the second part of the unit, students will learn about the discrimination and injustices faced by African Americans leading up to and during the civil rights movement and why it was necessary to fight for change. They will learn about how communities came together to organize and stand up to injustice. Students will also explore how Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.’s influential leadership influenced and inspired others to fight for change. It is our hope that this unit will help instill the values of diversity, justice, and action, and that it will serve as a launch for further discussions around discrimination, justice, and valuing individuals.

In this science-based unit, students begin to build respect for and understanding of living things by studying the life cycles of different plants and animals. In the first bend of the unit, students continue their exploration of seasons by exploring what makes spring the season of growth and the different characteristics of living, nonliving, and dead things. In the second part of the unit, students observe and learn about plants and what seeds need in order to grow into a plant. In the third part of the unit, students observe and learn about frogs and butterflies and the process in which tadpoles turn into frogs and caterpillars transform into butterflies. In the fourth part of the unit, students learn about birds and how birds grow and change inside of an egg. For each bend of the unit, it is incredibly important that students are able to participate in hands-on labs and activities that help them see and observe the life cycles in action; therefore, there are multiple project days within the unit. After the projects and labs have been set up, students should be pushed to predict, observe, record, and explain the changes that they notice. Throughout the unit, students should be challenged to think critically about how the life cycles of plants and animals are similar and different, and what all living things need in order to thrive and survive.

In this culminating unit, students learn about how to save the earth by reducing, reusing, and recycling. Over the course of the year, students studied the different seasons, learned about how animals and plants change and survive in different seasons, and explored some of the life cycles found in nature. Now, in this unit, students think about what they can do to make sure human waste does not hurt the environment. In the first part of the unit, students learn about waste, and why waste is a problem, especially plastic waste. Students then learn about options for limiting waste, including recycling, reducing, and reusing resources. In the second half of the unit, students read stories about different people from around the world who have found ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle waste. Using what they have learned in the unit, students will then make a plan for what they can do to create a healthy community and environment.

In this article, the author shows how school librarians and elementary teachers can help students create science lapbooks. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured on the seven essential principles of the climate sciences.

This is a sample lesson that can be applied to any book to help students learn new vocabulary words.

Students will practice vocabulary terms while also working on their speaking skills including eye contact and volume.

Learning to Write Opinions
Review five steps of the writing process
Review three main types of writing
Opinion Checklist Sample
Create graphic organizer model
Students will work around the room on their graphic organizers
Sharing
Drafts
Transition Words for Opinion Texts
Third Grade Editing Checklist
Revise and edit your piece
Peer Revise and Edit
Write or type a final copy
Feedback based on the Opinion Writing Checklist