Capture the engagement of young mathematicians with this hands-on sorting activity. Given a bag of objects, students work independently sorting the items based on their physical attributes, counting to determine the size of each group....

Kindergarteners build vocabulary by learning about categorization. They discuss the attributes of living and non-living things. As a class, they view and sort pictures into each category. They discuss the word category and what it means.

In the tenth instructional activity of this unit, young scholars learn to categorize information as they continue researching their colonial trade. During guided practice, the teacher models how to read informational text slowly while...

The seventh lesson plan in this unit on colonial trade assesses fourth graders' ability to use details from an informational text to make inferences and create a piece of informative writing. The included assessment begins with learners...

Third graders continue to practice the close reading skills of capturing the gist and reading again for important details in the sixth instructional activity in a larger unit. This is a great beginning-of-the-year unit for establishing...

Acquaint your class with informational text through a close reading. First, examine a couple of pages together, looking at text features and content. The whole class focuses on marking down a brief summary of each paragraph before...

This second lesson in a larger unit is perfect for the beginning of the year because it explicitly teaches 3rd graders how to use close reading skills by identifying unfamiliar words, figuring out the gist, and defining important...

For this ninth lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit, close reading skills are used independently to find the gist of the story That Book Woman. Rereading for important details is the targeted skill to unlock a deeper...

As a summative assessment for this unit on colonial trade, fourth graders listen to and read informational texts in order to demonstrate their ability to take notes, write summaries, and draw connections. Young scholars first listen as...

The twelfth instructional activity of this unit builds on the skills developed in the previous instructional activity, as fourth graders continue their quest to become experts on colonial trade by listening to interviews with historical...

Voices from the past. Young scholars listen to a podcast interview with a historical re-enactor as they continue their research in the eleventh instructional activity of this unit on colonial trade. Applying their close reading skills,...

Lesson ten in this unit for the book Bullfrogs at Magnolia Circle, prepares third graders to begin writing an informational paragraph about the adaptations of bullfrogs. First, young writers work either independently or in pairs to...

Fourth graders view examples of help-wanted ads as they plan and create their own writing in the fourteenth instructional activity of this unit on colonial trade. The engagement of the class is captured when the teacher shares an actual...

In instructional activity 13 of this unit on colonial trade, young researchers learn about apprentices as they prepare to write help-wanted ads for the specific trade they have been researching. To begin, the class listens closely as the...

Expose your class to Waiting for the Biblioburro, narrative nonfiction that will act as the bridge between ficiton and informational texts to come. Class members do a close reading of the text, looking at excerpts instead of the whole...

Sharpen your pencil and grab a ruler, it's time to draw some quadrilaterals! Given the definition of a parallelogram, rectangle, and rhombus, learners draw examples and nonexamples of each figure. The three definitions are...

Lesson 10 in a series of human rights lessons focuses on the skills of finding evidence and summarizing. Your young readers work to compare the two texts they have read in this unit: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

Individuals build on prior knowledge to order a set of rational numbers from least to greatest or greatest to least. As part of the lesson, they order rational numbers written in different forms.

Learners look over the iCare about the iPhone performance task and discuss how it relates to working conditions. They then review the research process and place focus on the step of asking questions. Finally, scholars ask questions to...