Polar Bears - ELA Lesson Plans #17

 This week is all about a close read of polar bear texts.  Last week's penguin unit was no mistake.  It built a schema for the kids on climate, polar regions and climate change.  This week we will delve into two main texts reading them over and over as we focus on asking and answering questions, finding new vocabulary, discovering author's point, compare and contrast and responding to text dependent questions in length with adequate support. While my normal shared reading texts last 20-30 minutes, this week will last 45-60 minutes taking up our writing block.  Students will respond to a question each day with a short answer with the exception of the fourth day.  On the fourth day they will respond in length.  Below level students will be expected to answer the question "Why is ice important to polar bears?"  On level students will be expected to answer the "Why is there a serious possibility that polar bears could become extinct?" with a three part response including: topic sentence, three supporting pieces of evidence and closing sentence.  Above level students will answer the same question with a four part response.  They will include the information from the on level response and add in a response that rebuts any climate change hoaxes.  For independent reading time, students will work on influential African American reading stations in anticipation for next week's lessons.

 This book is put out for students who need to extend their learning.

 On Thursday students will answer the question "Why is there a serious possibility that polar bears could become extinct?"  If time allowed, I would use Friday to conference with them.

Cultures From Around The World - ELA Lesson Plans #12

Here we are in week two of one of the best units EVER! The students are having a great time learning about cultures from around the world, how those cultures affect us, all while incorporating reading, writing and social studies standards together.  This week will not disappoint! All teachers know that learning just before a break can leave students a little less motivated, distracted and it may feel a bit like herding cats.  This is why I up the engagement of my lessons so that students keep on going until the minute they leave on Friday.

We will be diving into comparing and contrasting again on Monday.  The students will have a host of H.O.T questions to guide their thinking.  On Wednesday we will take a break a break during shared reading from cultures and dive into Thanksgiving.  We do not learn about a sugar coated Thanksgiving, rather we learn an age appropriate approximation of the events.  Students will look at the cause/effect relationships between these events in order to connect each event through a timeline.  Students have been discussing and learning about an author's point for weeks now, Thursday will have them reading three passages, determining the purpose and finding evidence to support the different points.

So much going on this week that every minute counts.  Our shared reading lessons will run between 20-30 minutes.  We will have fun read alouds ever day.  (I'll list some of them below for you.). We will also be incorporating fall fun into our guided reading.  Students will continue to write their Sweden pieces to display for their culture fair.  If you are interested in details to any of the extra events that I have listed, please look for links below.  You can find my lesson plan outlines from A Modern Teacher here.

Click below to see what a culture fair is and how to run one.

Here are my read alouds for the week.

Need a freebie for bellwork? Click on the picture below.  Check out last week's lessons for a couple other freebies for a culture fair.

Click below for some of the materials that I'm using this week.

Key Details - ELA Lesson Plans #11

The next two week's of lessons are going to be two of the BEST WEEKS EVER!  The students absolutely love learning about different countries and essentially getting to travel around the world. We will start the unit off during bellwork on the first day by making a suitcase to store our papers in.  You can see an example of the suitcase in the picture below titled "Travel The World".  Each day we will focus on a new standard and a new country in reading.  Students have already encountered each of these standards and will lead their learning in small groups.  Centers will be set up for them that include differentiated text, hands-on images of items from the country, flags, maps and a sight seeing guide.  You'll see examples of these in pictures below.  The unit that I made for these standards contains all print and go materials so there's not a ton of prep.  There will be a written assessment each day in the form of a graphic organizer that students will store in their suitcases.  Each day we will play a folk tale from the country that we get off of youtube for a read aloud.  It's another great way to incorporate more standards while the students stay engaged.  When time permits, students will get to make a craft during bell work from the country of the day.

During writing we will write an informational piece on our country of choice.  Each student will be assigned a different topic to write about.  The topic may include:  food, art, music, practice, clothing and/or beliefs.  We will use this writing during our culminating experience which is a Grade Level Culture Fair.  If you want to see how we run our Culture Fair, click on the second picture of this post.

Click on the picture below for a Sweden freebie.

Click below for a free passage on the U.S.A.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-United-States-Reading-Passages-2166287

Click on the pictures below to find the materials used this week.

You can find my lesson templates over at A Modern Teacher by clicking here.