In this lesson, students will learn that building a snowman is one way to provide food for birds and animals during the winter. Students begin by listening to a book about snow. Students are then introduced to a K-W-L chart and discuss what they know about how animals find food in the winter. As students listen to Henrietta Bancroft's Animals in Winter, they listen for details about how some animals survive during the winter and record those details in the last column of the chart. To continue to build students' knowledge of the topic, they listen to additional fiction and nonfiction books and view a website about animals in winter. As a culminating activity, students use their charts to write and illustrate a story.

In this lesson, students count the days between Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Valentine’s Day and are challenged to complete 100 acts of kindness during that time. They brainstorm examples of kind acts they could do and discuss how to report acts of kindness they witness. They also select a service project to plan and complete together as a class. For the project’s duration, acts of kindness are tracked on a classroom chart. Students are encouraged to acknowledge kind acts by others through thank you notes, and families are encouraged to help report acts of kindness. The project culminates with a Valentine’s Day celebration.

ABCya! presents its fifth children's storybook for the classroom. It's called Marvin Makes Music, an original work by Michelle Tocci. The story is about a frog that is sad because he cannot sing like his friends, until one day when he gets a new musical instrument. This is a great storybook to share with kids using an interactive whiteboard.

*This storybook has narration! Students can click the speaker button to have the story read to them.

This document provides a description of what each standard means a student will know, understand and be able to do. The "unpacking" of the standards done in this document is an effort to answer a simple question, "What does this standard mean that a student must know and be able to do?" and to ensure the description is helpful, specific and comprehensive for educators.

This informational text introduces students to the life cycle and migration of the sanderling, a bird that winters on beaches in the Southern United States and South America but breeds in the Arctic during the summer months. The text is written at a kindergarten through grade one reading level. This is a PDF containing the informational text and a glossary.

This teacher's curriculum guide presents strategies for engaging readers before, during, and after reading Jason Chin’s books. It also provides an extension strategy to further students’ understanding and enjoyment of the books. Before reading students will use prior knowledge to think about the topic, make predictions about the possible meaning of the text, and preview the text by skimming and scanning to get a sense of the overall meaning. During reading students will monitor interpretation and understanding by questioning, thinking about, and reflecting on ideas and information presented in the text. After reading students will reflect upon the ideas and information in the text, relate what they have read to their own experiences and knowledge, clarify their comprehension of the text, and extend their understanding in critical and creative ways.