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.

Week 21, Day 1 - Week 22, Day 3
Around the World in a Hundred Years (pages 9-13)
Introduce Book and Preview Technical Vocabulary
The book we will begin today is called Around the World in a Hundred Years. Now, that may sound a little strange because these days you can go around the world in a very short time. But this book is not about the present day. It’s about the age of exploration, centuries ago, when Europeans ventured out into the Atlantic Ocean. They traveled in ships.The book was written by Jean Fritz and illustrated by Anthony Bacon Venti.
Teach Text Structure
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
Some state Social Studies Standards list several explorers specifically. This read aloud doesn’t replace social studies instruction, but it may provide background knowledge.
A world map and a globe will be essential.

Week 8, Day 1 - Day 5
Earthquakes by Seymour Simon
Introduce Book and Preview Technical Vocabulary
Teach Text Structure
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
Planning Notes
Have a rubber band handy for a quick demonstration on Day 1.
Maps on display of North America will be helpful to quickly point out the places mentioned, such as Mexico City and California.
The book is partially paginated. Number the pages of the book in advance, with page 5 being the first page with text. This lesson plan will refer to those numbers.
Bring two square dinner plates if possible to illustrate the action of one “plate” against another.

Week 12, Day 1 - Day 5
My Life in Dog Years
Gary Paulsen organized his life story in an unusual way. Each chapter is about one of the many dogs he’s owned. So really, the book is not just about him but also about his dogs. It’s a collection of dog biographies. But we’ll learn a lot about the life of Gary Paulsen by reading them.
Introduce Book and Preview Technical Vocabulary
Teach Text Structure
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
Though nonfiction, this book contains no technical terminology. Because of this, for vocabulary, these lessons focus on Tier 2 words instead.

Week 22 Day 4 - Week 23 Day 1
Read Aloud: Roanoke: The Lost Colony
The book is called Roanoke: The Lost Colony, and it was written by Jane Yolen and her daughter Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple. It was illustrated by Roger Roth. Some books have subtitles, which tell us more about the book. The subtitle of this book is An Unsolved Mystery from History. The book is about a colony that was started in the 1500s in what is now North Carolina. And it simply vanished. The people were never heard from again.
Introduce Book and Preview Technical Vocabulary
Teach Text Structure
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
A map with a close-up view of eastern North Carolina would be helpful so that you can point out the location of Jamestown and Roanoke Island.
A map of the United States and/or North America would also be useful.
As a rule, when you read each two-page spread, begin with the main text (in yellow), and then go on to the notes. That’s because the notes sometimes refer to the text.
In the case of sticky notes, notice that the girl detective has apparently written down definitions that she has looked up. You may wish to call this strategy to the students’ attention and read the definitions when you come to the words.

Week 24, Day 5---Week 25, Day 5
The Moon Book: Pages 3-7
This is called The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons. Gail Gibbons has written many books on science.
This book will introduce some important words that we will need to understand the moon. Let’s make a diagram and I will show you a few of the most important of them.
Introduce Book and Preview Technical Vocabulary
Teach Text Structure
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
A yellow tennis ball and the classroom globe would be a good combination to have on hand in order to demonstrate some of the light effects from the sun.

Read Aloud: The Worst of Friends (3 days)
Introduce Book and Preview Technical Vocabulary: This is the story of two men who started out as enemies but later became friends. Their names are John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, but the author refers to them as John and Tom.
Diagram and Timeline
Teach Text Structure
Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading
Engage Students in Discussion
Update Text Structure Anchor Chart
Teach Sentence Composing
Assign or Model Written Response
Review and Share Written Responses
*Planning Notes
This lesson will require you to construct two diagrams over the course of three days. Keep them posted so that students can see you add to them and so that they can use them in responding to writing prompts.
A visible U.S. map would also be helpful to point out where they lived with respect to one another, their distance to Washington, DC, etc.

The lesson begins with a rereading of "The Milliner" from Colonial Voices: Hear Them Speak. This is meant to focus students on the Loyalist perspective to provide a purpose for reading more about Loyalists in the rest of the lesson.
In Work Time A, students read a new informational text, "Loyalists," for gist and unfamiliar Vocabulary in preparation for using it to research information in response to a question in Work Time B (RI.4.3, W.4.8). They also analyze the structure of the text (RI.4.5).
In Closing and Assessment A, students synthesize their reading about Loyalists in an informational paragraph (RI.4.1, W.4.9b). The elements of writing a paragraph are reviewed from Modules 1-2, specifically producing complete sentences (L.4.1f) and using commas and quotation marks to mark quotations from a text (L.4.2b).
In this lesson, students focus on working to become effective learners by collaborating in pairs.
For students who finish quickly and need an additional challenge, invite them to reread "Revolutionary War, Part I" and to add research notes from that resource.

The K-5 Text Analyses includes an analysis of every central text used in the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum, focusing on four specific qualitative aspects of complexity: meaning, structure, language features, and knowledge demands. This document includes text analyses for grade 4.

The purpose of this lesson is to encourage students to examine various aspects of cultural identity. The students will view the film Turbans, which focuses on a Sikh family's immigration to Oregon in the early 1900s.