This lesson is about using detective skills to be better nonfiction readers. Students will gather clues from the text to make assumptions and connections that will solve, and make meaning about the text. The students will use nonfiction text context clues, and pictures to realize that the author’s purpose is for them to find ALL the clues and make meaning of a topic.

In this unit, students will know why respect for others is a foundation of civil society. They will be able to demonstrate respect in the classroom and playground, and taking turns sharing ideas quietly. Respect for property might be demonstrated by not taking or damaging someone else's school supplies. Students will be able to analyze a situation where the respect for others, their ideas, and property is essential to live peacefully in our society.

In this introductory critical literacy lesson, students will consider the perspectives of central but silent characters in the picture book Stevie, by John Steptoe. They will look at the story from these characters’ points of view and give voice to their thoughts and feelings, thereby gaining much deeper understandings of the story and realizing that every story truly gives just a partial account of what happened.

With this unit, students learn how specialization creates interdependence and that exchanging goods and services creates interdependence. Students describe examples of specialists in a community and the interdependence which exists between them. They also analyze a situation where interdependence exists between countries and explain what might happen if one of those countries chooses to become independent of the others.

Students listen to a read-aloud of the Eric Carle picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Then they watch a time-lapse video of the monarch butterfly life cycle and create their own picture books.