After reading books about how/why the seasons change, higher-level students will read a fiction book that incorporates season changes and effects of those changes with their parents for homework.  They will then answer questions about the changes and the effects of the changes and bring those answers to class so that students may engage in a discussion seminar.  This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This resource contains extensions, assessments/reflections, and five different session ideas to teach students how to: use prior knowledge to categorize words as parts of speech; use reading skills to create sentences with word cards; discover the required elements of a complete sentence by manipulating everyday words; share and learn new vocabulary; use descriptive words and phrases to complete complex sentences; and demonstrate reading comprehension through illustrations.

In this lesson, students will retell a story they have read by creating and using puppets.

In this lesson, students read words found on everyday objects and use them to identify individual letters. They then create captions for an electronic book with preselected logos and illustrations. Finally, they create an original little book choosing their own logos, captions, and images.

In this lesson, students listen as the book Madeline is read aloud. Students use the text and illustrations to understand the story. They will also identify the rhyming words used in the book. After reading the book, students will make their own rhyming book and illustrate it.

In this lesson, students will learn to identify letters and words by exploring one another's names and other words. Each student gets to be "Student of the Day," and the class will explore his or her name and life. Students will learn which letters are in their classmate's name, as well as the words for their friend's hobbies and favorite things. Students will be encouraged to draw and write messages to each other on a daily basis.

In this lesson, student will listen to the book, "A New Coat for Anna". Students will learn about resources, scarcity, costs, trade/bartering, and decision making through a young girl, Anna, whose mother wanted to buy her a coat but did not have the money. Students will explain how families have needs and wants and various ways in which people earn and use materials, such as money, for goods and services. Students will see how supply and demand effects the choices families and communities make.

In this lesson, inspired by the book 'It Begins with an A', this minilesson invites kindergartners to combine their experiences with familiar objects and descriptive writing by making a class book. First, during a reading of It Begins with an A, students discuss descriptive works, number words, size words, and other words that describe objects in the book. Next, students practice by giving three clues that describe familiar objects named by the teacher. Students are encouraged to develop more specific and descriptive clues. Then, each student thinks of an object and draws it on the back of a sheet of paper. On the front of the paper, they write three clues that describe the object. Finally, the completed pages are combined to create a book that can be shared with family members and peers before adding it to their classroom library.

In this lesson, students will use their knowledge of letters and sounds to make an alphabet book that focuses on a specific letter. After the teacher models the given letter sound, each student, in turn, repeats the sound and names a word beginning with that letter sound. The teacher pronounces each word, encouraging students to tell the sounds they hear. The teacher writes the word on chart paper or the board, and then repeats these steps for each student. The sentence, "This is a _____.", is written on each page of the book. Each student draws the word they named beginning with the targeted letter and labels it on the line provided. The pages are then combined into a classroom book.

In this lesson, students begin by singing a song to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Kindergartners can identify and learn letter names and beginning consonant sounds. First graders will enjoy extending the activity by creating new verses to the song as a class, thus building phonemic awareness and vocabulary. The activity culminates by illustrating the song verses.

This is a first grade science unit on weather.  Students will observe, measure, describe and record aspects of weather such as temperature, air, wind and clouds. They will also practice using various weather tools, and look for patterns in weather over a year-long span.

Students will listen to a reading of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs by Judi Barrett.  This book is accessible via NC Kids Digital Library. After the read aloud, students will have the opportunity to engage in The Engineering Design Process to design a prototype/model of a hat or clothing to show how people might adapt to the unusual weather conditions as depicted in the story.  Students will present their design/prototypes and explain how the designs help people adapt to weather conditions, per the NC Kindergarten Social Studies Standards.

In this lesson, the teacher reveals the first letter of the name, having students whose name start with that letter stand. More letters are revealed and students sit down as their name is ruled out. Once the helper is selected, students read the helper's name, count the letters in the name, clap the syllables, spell the name aloud, add the name to the word wall, and make observations about it. Using magnetic letters, students can create words that rhyme with the helper's name. Many additional ideas for playing with the letters of students' names are also presented here.

Day 1: draw maps of rooms in the school or the playground

Day 2: write directions of where they are on the map

Day 3: using their bee-bot and grid map, student A will read their written directions and student B will program the Bee-bot with partner A’s directions. The team will problem solve and make notes if the Bee-bot does not locate partner A. Students will then switch roles.

In this lesson, letter-sound correspondences are taught within a meaningful context in an explicit, systematic, and extensive manner. This lesson uses onset-rime analogy to present word families and spelling patterns. An onset is the consonant letter before the vowel in a given word or syllable, and a rime is the vowel and consonants that follow the vowel in a given word or syllable. Thus, in the word bill, the onset is the letter b and the rime is the letters ill. Furthermore, this lesson supports cooperative and integrative learning where students and teacher learn together and carry out tasks collaboratively.

In this lesson, students learn to identify written words with similar endings by singing and reciting nursery rhymes. Students begin by reciting Humpty Dumpty, identifying two words with similar ending sounds, and creating their own lists of words with the same ending sound. Students repeat this procedure with words from Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater and Jack and Jill. Finally, students access a website to identify the word families featured in other nursery rhymes and then create an illustration and text based on their favorite nursery rhyme.

In this lesson, students are first introduced to a variety of books using rebus writing. They then brainstorm lists of rhyming words that they could use in their own rebus poems. Finally, students create their own rebus poems and share them with an audience.

This is a fun game or warm up activity to complete with students over Zoom or Google Hangout platforms for live video interaction. You could also upload it to SeeSaw and have students post pictures of their items! 

Your students will apply their knowledge of letters and letter sounds as they play games and interact with letters online using what they see and learn to create their own ABC book.