Children love to tell stories. They will make up something that happened to them just to be able to tell a story. In this lesson students will take a story they have written and publish it using Google Slides or PowerPoint. They will be able to insert pictures and speech bubbles to make their story come to life for their audience.

Using Wonders Literature Anthology and students Reading/Writing Companion, students will learn “What we know about Earth and its neighbors”.  Students will read about discoveries in space and how we learn more about our solar system.  After reading texts from Wonders using literature anthology and student reading writing companion, students will be placed in 9 groups (representing one planet each) and conduct research on their planet.  Students will create a one pager displaying a drawing or image of their planet with six facts (facts must include size, temperature, and an option of four other facts).  Students will then utilize Makey Makey to conduct an oral presentation of their project by coding and recording facts.  After completion, students will do a Gallery Walk to visit each planet while completing interactive guided note sheet in Google Slides.

 This activity is in place of Research and Inquiry project on page 111 and 121 of student reading / writing companion In this lesson, students can choose from a list of historical figures to create a research project. Students will be asked to create a digital timeline of that person, and include images, audio, and/or video on their timeline that they find throughout their research. Each student will be asked to present their timeline to the rest of the class.

In this lesson, literature and shared writing are used to teach letter-writing format and promote authentic letter writing. Students listen to and talk about stories dealing with correspondence before participating in a collaborative, whole-group letter-writing activity. They go on to write their own letters to deliver or mail to adult school helpers, family, or friends. Students often go on to write letters on their own time, which may generate ongoing correspondence.