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Home > INSTRUCTION > State Standards and Frameworks > English Language Arts > gr1_Our_Environment_Unit_Overview

 Gr. 1 Unit: Our Environment


Essential Question:

Wk 1: What is an environment?

Wk 2: How do we harm the environment?

Wk 3: How do we help the environment?

Wk 4: How do we help the environment?

Wk 5: How can we save our Earth?

Wk 6: How can we share our knowledge about the environment?


Lesson Calendar

DAY 1 - PLAN 1

DAY 2 - PLAN 2

DAY 3 - PLAN 3

DAY 4 - PLAN 4

DAY 5 - SEED 1

DAY 6-7 - PLAN 5

DAY 8-9 - PLAN 6

DAY 10 - SEED 2

DAY 11-12 - PLAN 7

DAY 13 - Seed 3

DAY 14-15 - SEED 4

DAY 16-17 - SEED 5

DAY 18–20 - PLAN 8

DAY 21 - PLAN 9

DAY 22

DAY 23

DAY 24

DAY 25

DAY 26 -SEED 6

DAY 27

DAY 28

DAY 29 - SEED 6

DAY 30

CCSS Standards for this Unit

Monitoring Templates

Download Seeds, Plans, and Resources (zip)

Send Feedback to MSDE’s Reading Team

F1

UNIT OVERVIEW

4 Weeks - "Unit at a Glance" Organizer

Download all unit files (zip)

This unit explores ways we interact with our environment. Throughout the unit, focus questions will refine and deepen students' understanding of the impact we have on our environment, whether positive or negative, and the Essential Question guides students to determine ways they can help to maintain or improve existing environmental conditions.

Throughout this unit, students will engage in activities to develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills as they relate to our environment and the effect we have upon it. Students will develop speaking and listening skills as they participate in discussions, ask and answer questions, and as they listen to stories, and various forms of media. Students will develop their reading skills as they listen to and read a range of texts. Students will develop their writing skills as they complete routine and extended writing pieces. After multiple opportunities to read and listen to texts about the environment, students will complete a final performance task. At the completion of this unit, students will be able to describe our impact on our environment and suggest ways it can be maintained or improved.


TEXT MODELS FOR LESSONS AND LESSON SEEDS

Literature

Earth Is on Big Turtle's Back told by Patricia Lynch
Earth Mother by Ellen Jackson
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse an Aesop fable retold by Lorinda Bryan Cauley
Two Mice by Lynn Reiser
The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry
The Wump World by Bill Peet
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel
Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg

Informational Text

Recycling by Neil Morris
Where Does the Garbage Go? By Paul Showers
Our Earth: Keeping It Clean by Peggy Hock
Our Earth: Saving Water by Peggy Hock
Our Earth: Making Less Trash by Peggy Hock
Our Earth: Saving Energy by Peggy Hock
The Three R's: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle (What Do You Know About? Books) by Nuria Roca

Websites

Possible websites for habitat pictures (to be used with struggling readers)

http://www.mbgnet.net /index.html

Online data base for on level readers

www.pebblego.com /content/science/pgo player.php

Possible websites for high level readers

http://www.encha ntedlearning.com/ biomes/

http://environment .nationalgeographic. com/environment/habi tats/desert-profile/

http://environment .nationalgeographic.com /environment/habitats /grassland-profile/

http://environment .nationalgeographic .com/environment/hab itats/rainforest -profile/

http://environment .nationalgeographic. com/environment/habi tats/tundra-p rofile/

Websites:

http://www.seussv ille.com/Educators/l orax_classroom/ed ucatorlorax_dis cuss.php

http://www.seussville.com/loraxproject/


STUDENT OUTCOMES

  1. Students will listen and observe closely during a read alouds to answer text dependent questions.
  2. Students will participate in collaborative conversations with partners about a grade 1 topic.
  3. Students will use text details to determine the central message or lesson in literary text.
  4. Students will generate questions about habitats.
  5. Students will identify and record details in the text or website that answer questions.
  6. Students will compare and contrast the characters and events in two selections.
  7. Students write informative, opinion and narrative pieces about the environment
  8. Students identify ways in which the environment is harmed.
  9. Students use pronouns correctly in sentences.
  10. Students will work in collaborative groups to discuss a problem and decide on a possible solution.
  11. Students will recognize how rhyming words are similar and different
  12. Students will locate words in poems that rhyme
  13. Students will write a poem using a template and words that rhyme.
  14. Students will identify story elements (characters, events, setting) by using a graphic organizer
  15. Students will retell a story, including characters, details, and main ideas
  16. Students will participate in shared research on a topic in order to supply some facts about a topic.
  17. Students will use the information they gathered about a habitat to write and illustrate predictions about how humans can change the environment.
  18. Students will use digital tools to produce and publish writing.

Pre-Assessment: As part of the unit opener, students will identify and explain how to use their 5 senses to observe an environment/habitat.
Formative: "Traffic Light" signals will be utilized by students to show their level of understanding as they work on tasks. Week 1 Day 2 lesson includes details about how to make and implement traffic signals in the classroom. Monitor student writing to determine if students understand that humans have an impact on the environment in which they live.
Summative: Students will complete a final performance task to write a report.

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  Last Updated 3/17/2020 11:45 AM