Unit 2: Lessons 1 - 7

Unit 2 is when things change, and quick! They throw so many activities and worksheets at you that you can't possibly fit them all in. I find that some of them are redundant, too difficult for the kids to do on their own, could be done as a group, or the group discussion held previously could suffice.

With that being said, here is what I changed, didn't do, replaced, added, etc. Some may claim that my kids aren't getting it all, I'm not teaching to fidelity, my kids are missing out . . . but this is what I did last year and my class made amazing growth. It's just about knowing your class, what you can skip, what to spend more time on, what to do as a group, what to do in small groups / partners, and so on.

Lesson 1

Language: Our district decided we will not be grading all of the spelling words. The first list shows their words for the week. The second list are Bonus words that I will still give on the test, but will grade as advanced if they get them correct.

Lesson 2

Reading: Instead of the card game I used draggable slides so I could use it as a formative assessment.

Language: I don't think there is enough time to practice spelling words, so every day my kids get 5-10 minutes to play a wordwall.net game. I keep this linked in Google Classroom so fast finishers can play at other times as well.

Lesson 3

Reading: I printed of "vertebrate" and "invertebrate" and hung them on opposite side of the classroom. I said an animal, and the kids walked to the side of the room indicating if they thought it was an invertebrate or vertebrate.

They wrote "invertebrate" and "vertebrate" in a notebook, and took notes as we went along instead of me writing it.

We are not doing page 3.2 - instead we are using the vertebrate book created by another teacher, found in the Unit 2 section of this website.

Language: We did not do the "stand up" activity. Instead, I had them code the sentence using a drawing slide on Pear Deck.

Note to self: Do Activity page 3.4 as a class next time. I had them work in partners and this was a tough one!

Lesson 4

Listening: Mystery Main Idea - I made these into slides using the graphic organizer we use for Main Idea & Details. The kids typed the main idea into the circle.

Reading: We used the same organizer, but blank this time to find the main idea and details on specific pages in the reader. We did one set of pages together, and the second they did on their own. I prefer my students to have something to do/write rather than just responding orally. You could use a paper copy of this if you don't use slides!

Language: We did not have time to do the worksheets, but I had them play 2 wordwall.net games to practice the prefixes. They had to match the word with the definition.

Lesson 5

Listening: We did not do the Student Interview or Exit Slip (5.4). Instead we stopped after each page during the reader and pointed out which text features were on each page. I had them partner share, then whole class share.

Language: I used the sentences from Take Home 5.5 and made them into drawing slides on Pear Deck. We diagrammed several together, then I had them do some independently. I was able to immediately take a grade on these, so it was a great formative assessment. So much easier than flipping through all those papers! These are included in my Unit 2 Slides.

Lesson 6

Language: We spent time reviewing what a subject and predicate are, which was a good thing because none of them had remembered it from 2nd grade. I used Take Home page 5.5 to JUST separate the subject and predicate, since we had used those same sentences on slides yesterday to find the parts of speech. We will do a lesson on compound sentences and Activity page 6.4 during our Pausing Point day.

Lesson 7

Frog Scavenger Hunt: I made slides for this with pictures, maps, and videos. This was a lot more engaging than just finding cards around the room. You can download these slides here!

We read chapters 8 and 9 together, and did this Venn Diagram on Pear Deck as they listened to Chapter 9. They shared with a friend after each page. We did not do the Exit Ticket.