Read the book Mr. Ferris and his Wheel. Make sure to draw attention to the shapes used in the creation of a ferris wheel. Students will work in small groups to design and create a free standing, spinning wheel.

Students will research and report on a school system of a foreign country that they choose based on a typical school lunch.  Near the end of Unit 6 teachers will introduce students to multiple cultures by showing them typical school lunches (see website under technology accessories).  Students will base their decision of what country’s school system to look into solely on the lunch example.  

ADDING TEXT REMIX of Remix: Election Day: Our Civic Duty & Why It Matters: Grade 3-5
Students will build background and show understanding about government elections at the local, state, and national levels in the United States.

Students will write, revise, and edit an informational piece to demonstrate mastery of the topic of elections incorporating key academic content vocabulary.

Students will create a PPT with a teacher's model to demonstrate understanding and mastery of key content area vocabulary words.

Students will complete activities during independent work time or literacy stations. Provides a QR code for students to listen to stories (2 non-fiction and 1 fiction) about elections. After they listen to the stories they choose one of the non-fiction texts to write facts about, find the main idea and key details, and define new words

Informational paried passage mini-assessment that includes two articles and one accompanying recording, thirteen text-dependent questions (including one optional constructed-response prompt for students), and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS. Articles included are “High Schools Starting Later to Help Sleepy Teens,” by Michelle Trudeau and “High schools will keep starting too early. Here’s why.” by Dan Weissmann

I have used this project as a summative assessment at the end of the school year for many years across two grade levels (6th and 8th). It has taken multiple formats as my students choose the medium that they utilize.

This project can be used as a summative assessment in Middle and High School.

Mini-Lesson for use during guided instruction group to assist students in learning the reading strategy.
Standards:
RL.6.5 Analyze how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the theme, setting, or plot.

In this lesson, students who are reading Animal Farm, by George Orwell (All rights reserved-Copyright), will evaluate the behaviors of different animals. Students will then research the individuals/groups represented by these characters and they will start to make connections as they think about why the author chose certain characters to represent certain people. Once students have a better understanding of the characters and who they represent, they will choose one character and trace the development of that character throughout the text. 

In this lesson, students who are reading Animal Farm, by George Orwell (All rights reserved-Copyright), will evaluate the behaviors of different animals. Students will then research the individuals/groups represented by these characters and they will start to make connections as they think about why the author chose certain characters to represent certain people. Once students have a better understanding of the characters and who they represent, they will choose one character and trace the development of that character throughout the text. 

 Students will participate in small groups to ask (generate) & answer questions about a text. Students can respond to a fiction or nonfiction text using the available resources. Students will listen and respond to peer answers to further explain or discuss the given “mat card”. Students will program their BeeBot to go to the location. 

Students will learn about influential members of society that have been voices of change using their Wonders text from Unit 4 weeks 1 and 2. As students learn about these important figures, they will choose a social issue that they would like to change in order to help society as a whole. Students will use a google slide graphic organizer to plan the steps that they will take to create the change that they would like to see. After completing the graphic organizer, students will share their ideas using Voki avatars or some type of recording program.

In this lesson, students will….
Be able to ask and answer questions referring explicitly to a text about the solar system. Students will start off with a KWL chart. Then the teacher is going to read a portion of a solar system passage. The teacher then will demonstrate to the students how to generate questions using the text. The teacher will model a level one as well as a level 3 question. Following that the class will read the remainder of the passage and generate some questions together. For independent work students are going to read a book on Epic and come up with a question as a group. They will write this down on a piece of poster paper. After all groups are done students will rotate in their groups around to the other groups posters (gallery walk style). Once at the groups students will use the bee bot to identify if the group's question was a level 1 or a level 3 question.

 In this lesson, students will work interactively through the Hyperdoc using the story Birth of an Anthem in  their Wonders Literature Anthology. The lesson will begin with discussion about what an anthem is and how it could represent a country, place, etc while providing students with background knowledge of the Star Spangled Banner by watching the youtube link below.   As students complete both readings of Birth of an Anthem, students will work through a hyperdoc focusing on various reading skills; identifying key ideas and details, summarizing, analyzing text structure (cause and effect).  

Help Noah learn how to identify examples of cause and effect in informational text in this ocean-themed, interactive tutorial. You will also learn how to match events and ideas in informational text that have a cause and effect relationship. 

This is REMIX  with adding accessibility by headers and organize by numbers.These activities provide students with a way to explore the Christmas Truce of 1914 through multiple media. It lends itself to the exploration of many themes: War, Peace, Kindness, Globalism, Humanity. The discussion questions suggested here focus on the universality of the human experience. Although it uses a picture book as the anchor text, the activities could be used in middle and high school as well. The timing is flexible depending on the use of the discussion questions and how many tasks you choose to do.

These activities provide students with a way to explore the Christmas Truce of 1914 through multiple media. It lends itself to the exploration of many themes: War, Peace, Kindness, Globalism, Humanity. The discussion questions suggested here focus on the universality of the human experience. Although it uses a picture book as the anchor text, the activities could be used in middle and high school as well. The timing is flexible depending on the use of the discussion questions and how many tasks you choose to do.

These activities provide students with a way to explore the Christmas Truce of 1914 through multiple media. It lends itself to the exploration of many themes: War, Peace, Kindness, Globalism, Humanity. The discussion questions suggested here focus on the universality of the human experience. Although it uses a picture book as the anchor text, the activities could be used in middle and high school as well. The timing is flexible depending on the use of the discussion questions and how many tasks you choose to do.

This lesson aligns with the 7th grade Social Studies curriculum and works best when integrated into an interdisciplinary unit, such as Reliving the Middle Ages Across Lliterary Genres. Interdisciplinary Units are effective when teachers from two different content areas collaborate to plan lessons, assessments, activities and projects that support their content skills and standards. The content being taught in one course supports the content in another and students approach difficult, content-specific texts with more familiarity and gain better comprehension.  Students read two nonfiction articles about the Middle Ages, which lasted from about A.D. 500 to A.D. 1500. Both texts examine one of the most significant events of this time period-- the spread of the bubonic plague, or the Black Death. Each text is organized into cause-and-effect pattern of organization. One outlines HOW the disease spread (causes) and the other explains how it affected Europe (effects). Students analyze two texts by different authors writing about the same topic, the Black Plague, and compare/contrast how each author shapes their presentations of key information by emphasizing different evidence. 

In this lesson, students listen to an excerpt of Poppy by Avi, and describe the characters using details from the text.

Students will actively engage in the Connections Pear Deck activity with partners or small groups of 3 students. Texts referenced are from Unit 4 of Wonders. Students will make individual and text connections throughout this activity.