Quarter 1
READING
EL Module 1, Overcoming Learning Challenges Near and Far, Units 1-3 Overview:
This module uses literature and informational text to introduce students to the power of literacy and how people around the world overcome learning challenges. It is intentionally designed to encourage students to embrace a love of literacy and reading. In Unit 1, students begin to build their close reading skills; they hear stories read aloud, read works in their entirety, and read more challenging excerpts closely. Throughout their readings, students determine the gist, identify the central message, and consider what key details convey that message in the text.In Unit 2, students consider how geography and where one lives in the world affects how one accesses books. Students continue building knowledge and vocabulary related to world geography as they study excerpts from My Librarian Is a Camel by Margriet Ruurs, which describes how librarians overcome geographic challenges to get children books. Students apply their learning by writing a simple informative paragraph about how people access books around the world, focusing on the role of specific librarians or organizations they studied. Finally, in Unit 3 students focus more on what it means to be a proficient and independent reader. They continue to read literature about characters who are motivated to learn to read and overcome struggles to do so. Students assess their challenges as readers, and identify strategies to overcome those challenges. This unit includes a heavy emphasis on building reading fluency. Students write a reading contract in the form of a three-paragraph informative essay, in which they describe two of their learning challenges and some strategies to overcome those challenges.
As part of the final performance task, they make an eye-catching reading strategies bookmark to help them remember those strategies as they read independently throughout the rest of the year. This task centers on ELA Standards W.3.4 and W.3.5.
MATH
The students will work on:
Building Mathematical Community & Understanding Equal Groups
Using Data to Solve Problems
Stories with Addition & Subtraction
- Represent and solve problems involving multiplication and division.
- Multiply and divide within 100.
- Represent and interpret data.
- Use place value understanding and properties of operations to perform multi digit arithmetic.
The students will begin working on their Objects in the Sky Unit in Science.
During this unit the students will:
*Students know that we live on a planet that is part of a solar system. Students know that a solar system includes a star and planets, and other objects. The planets and other objects revolve around the star. Students know that in our solar system Earth is the third planet from the sun (a star).
*Students know that the sun and stars in the sky [appear to] move in consistent patterns. Students know that shadows are created by objects blocking the light. Students know that as the sun changes its apparent position in the sky, the shadows cast by objects will change. Students know that the Earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun.
*Students know that the Earth rotates on an axis and that this rotation causes one side of our planet to receive light rays from the sun (day) while the other side is in darkness (night). This rotation occurs over a 24-hour period.
*Students know that the moon rotates and revolves around the Earth. The moon's appearance (phase) is determined by its position relative to the Earth and Sun. The appearance of the moon changes in a specific pattern and repeats this sequence over the course of approximately 28 days. During part of this cycle, the moon's visible portion appears to grow larger (waxes, waxing). This is followed by a period during which the moon's visible portion appears to reduce in size (wanes, waning). Students are familiar with the following phases of the moon: New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon, and Last Quarter.
*Students know that light travels in a straight line. Students know that light can be refracted, reflected, and/or absorbed.
*Students know that there are bodies of water on the surface of the earth and that they are often named based on their characteristics and location. Some bodies of water are salty, some are fresh, some are brackish, and some are frozen in ice sheets and glaciers. Different t types of organisms have developed to live in these different bodies and types of water.
*Students know that the surface of the earth has many different types of physical features and that these features are named according to their structure. There are many representations for any given land feature and these possess correspondences consistent with their attributes.
Social Studies
The students will begin working on their Geography and Environmental Literacy. During this unit the students will:
Find absolute and relative locations of places within the local community and region.
Compare the human and physical characteristics of places.
Exemplify how people adapt to, change and protect the environment to meet their needs.
Explain how the movement of goods, people and ideas impact the community.
Summarize the elements (cultural, demographic, economic and geographic) that define regions (community, state, nation and world)
Compare various regions according to their characteristics