Objectives:

1. A student will be able to explain the difference living and nonliving things by outlining the characteristics of living things on a chart.

2. I want my students to be able to classify at least one animal and explain its characteristics. 

3. I want my students to be able to explain the relationship between an organism and its environment.

4.  I want my students to be able to predict what will happen to a plant given varying levels of light and assess their results.

5. I want my students to be able to outline the life cycles of selected plants and animals.

Activities and Objectives:

Day 1, Monday:

Objective: From this lesson, a student will be able to explain the difference between living and nonliving things by outlining the characteristics of living things on a chart.

Activity:

1. Prior to this lesson, students over the weekend would have recorded living characteristics of their family or neighborhood pet. Also prior to this lesson, students will have made observations about the class plant. Students will also have made observations about a rock.

2. Next, I would hand out blank data tables, as I would tell the students: “Lately we have been observing rocks, plants and animals. Today we are going to discuss the characteristics of living and non living things.” I would them draw a three column data table on the board and on the top of each column I would write “plants”, “animals” and “rocks”. I would instruct the students to do the same.

3. I would ask them to reflect on what they have observed about their pets, the plant and the rock. I would ask then open-ended questions that would lead them to compare and contrast living and nonliving things. As the students respond, I would write their responses in the appropriate column on the board.

4. I would then verbally list several living and nonliving things and instruct the class to use the chart we just created to classify whether or not they are alive.

Day 2, Tuesday: Combining math and science time together.

Objective:

From this lesson, a student will be able to predict what will happen to a plant given varying levels of light and assess their results.

Activity:

1. In the beginning of the lesson, I will have the class review the characteristics of living things by asking them open-ended questions. I would then explain to the class that today we are going to see how the environment affects living things.

2. I would then present the class with six plants and explain to them that today we will be discovering how different amounts of light from the environment can affect a plant. I would explain to the class that we are going to break up the plants into three groups, full sunlight, shady, and complete darkness. I would then ask the class to make a prediction by asking the question, “What do you think will happen to each of the three groups when exposed to the different amount of light?”

3. Then the class will break up into six groups. Each group will take a ruler and a plant and measure its height, thickness of its stalk, width of leaves, number of branches and number of leaves. Each student will then record the information in his or her science notebooks. 

4. Then plants will then be labeled, watered, and placed in their designated area until Friday.

5. For math, I would first ask my students to take out their science notes and ask them to open to a fresh sheet of paper. I would explain to the class that in our science activity, we are acting like scientists, and scientists usually gather a lot of information about their experiments. Often scientists use graphs, charts, and tables to help them organize and understand the information they have collected.

6. I would then instruct the class to make a data table that I would model on the overhead. We would make six data tables, one for each plant in the experiment (see sheet).

7. After we have constructed the data table, I would ask the class “How might a data table help us with our experiment? What are some other ways we could use a data table in math?” I would also ask them if they notice any patterns among the plants. “Do plants with thicker stalks have more leaves?, Do taller plants have bigger leaves?”

Day 3, Wednesday:

IMPORTANT: On Wednesdays, my school (school #33) has an early dismissal, so they do not have a science or social studies class. To compensate for this I have incorporated the study of animals into their independent and guided reading.

Objective:

From this lesson, a student will be able to classify at least one animal and explain its characteristics. 

Activity:

1. Prior to independent reading, I would tell the class that today we would be learning about different kinds of animals. Each child would be given a text (from the text set). After they read their text, they will write down on a piece of paper, the name of their animal, what species it is from, a physical description, how many babies it will have, and one thing that they found was unique or cool about their animal.

2. During guided reading, students will get into guided reading groups and discuss their animal, and compare and contrast their animal to another student.

3. During writing, students will write a brief paragraph about their animal. This will be their rough draft to be revised later.

Activity during math:

3. During math, I would ask students to bring out their reading notes and their math notebooks. I would then tell the class that we would be using tree diagrams to discover which animal will have to most babies by the third generation (most grandkids). We would pick five animals from our readings earlier that day, making sure we have a mix of predators and prey. I would first ask them, “Which animal do you think will have the most babies?, Why?” Then, we would use the previously gathered information to construct a tree diagram for a given animal.

4. Then the class will look at the results. I will then ask them questions such as “Which animal had the most grandkids?”, “Why do you think some animals (prey, herbivores, and insects) have more babies than others (prey, carnivores)?”

Day 4, Thursday: Combine math, writing and science time together.

Objective:

From this lesson, a student will be able to outline the life cycles of selected plants and animals.

Activity:

1. During writing, I will first do a minilesson on revision with the students.

2. Then, I will ask students to revise their own rough draft of their animal they had written about the day before. During this time, I will call up students to my desk and make any suggestions to improve their piece.

3. At the beginning of the science lesson, I will review with the students some of the information they built on from the previous day about their animal. I would then tell the class “Today we are going to talk about the life cycles of an animal.” I would make sure to emphasize the fact the not all animals have to same number of life stages.

4. I would then ask the students to take out their science notes and I will use the overhead to illustrate some animals life cycles.

5. Students will then make a list of the life cycle stages of the animal they have researched and add this information to their notes.

6. Then for the math component, students will illustrate the life cycle stages of their animal on sectioned paper. On the back of each section, students will write the number sequence. Then students will cut out each square of their life cycle and leave them on their desk, mixed up and illustration up.

7. Then students will go around to each other’s desks and try to figure out the correct sequence. To assess themselves, the students will then flip over the squares to see if they were correct. Then they will mix up the squares, illustration up for the next student.

8. After this activity has gone on for about 15 minutes, students will return to their desks and I will ask them if there are any patterns between the life cycle stages between different animals.

Day 5, Friday: Science, Writing and Math time will be combined together.

Objective:

I want my students to be able to predict what will happen to a plant given varying levels of light and assess their results.

Activity:

1. During writing, I will do a minilesson on editing.

2. Students will edit their own piece or with a partner. During this time, I will meet individually with students who are having difficultly editing their piece.

3. To begin the science lesson, I will remind the class of the experiment they began on Tuesday and have then pull out their written hypothesizes. I would have them bring out their science notes and a ruler.

4. Students will get into their original groups as I pass out the plants. I will instruct students to write down their new measurements in their science notes. They must measure everything they measured on Tuesday.

5. I will then instruct them to take their data and fill in the appropriate columns on their chart. I will then ask the class, “What information does this chart tell us?”

6. I will then show the class another way on how to present the same data using a line graph. I will hand out graph paper to the class and show them how to set up a line graph.

I will tell them about new terms such as “x-axis” and “y-axis”. Then I will show them how to plot the information.

7. Then, I will ask the class, “Okay class, which plant do you think survived the best?”, “Why?”, “Which plant do you think survived the least?”, “Why?”, “What do you think this tells us about how a living thing depends on its environment?” Under their own graph, I will ask my students to write one to two sentences about what their data means.

Day 6, Monday: Will incorporate math, science, ELA and Art.

Objective:

From this lesson, a student will be able to explain the relationship between an organism and its environment.

A student will be able to explain the difference living and nonliving things by outlining the characteristics of living things on a chart.

I want my students to be able to classify at least one animal and explain its characteristics. 

I want my students to be able to explain the relationship between an organism and its environment.

 I want my students to be able to predict what will happen to a plant given varying levels of light and assess their results.

I want my students to be able to outline the life cycles of selected plants and animals.

Activity:

1. During writing, students will use their edited copy of their animal to make their final draft.

 2. In the beginning of the science lesson, I will ask students to get their science and math notes. I will ask them to look at their notes from math and science and have them have a small group discussion about what they have found. After about 15 minutes, I will call the class together and have an open class discussion about what they have found. I would use guiding open-ended questions to lead them to realize how living things depend on their environment. Questions such as “What if an environment didn’t have enough plants?”, “How does a living creature depend on the nonliving environment?”, and “How do creatures depend on one another?”

3. I will then tell the class that today they will be reporters. Today they had discovered a new organism in the forest! Based on what they have already learned about characteristics of living organisms, life cycles, and how organisms depend on their environment, they have to describe and explain how this organism lives, looks, acts, and reproduces. The students will then be given lined paper and asked to describe their animal. Anyone who does not finish on time, the assignment will be taken home for homework. This creative writing assignment will be part of the over all assessment.

4. For math, I will explain to the class that there are many patterns in nature. I will first show them a large picture of a forest. I will ask them what living and nonliving things they see that are symmetrical. If they are stuck, they can refer to their previously made living characteristics chart.

5. The class will then create their own “environment”, by drawing symmetrical trees, leaves, and animals. They will do this by folding over a piece of paper and draw half of a front view of a living or non-living thing. Then they will lay the paper flat and try to draw a mirror image of what they just drew.

6. Then we will post their “environment”, “creatures”, and paragraphs they have written about their real animal and their imaginary animal on the outside bulletin board. They will also post their data they collected about their plant experiment along with a brief interpretation of the data.

Monday, Day 1 Handout

	Plant	Animal	Rock
Made up of cells
Acquire and use energy
Grow and develop
Reproduce
Respond to its environment
Adapt to its environment

Day 2and 5, Tuesday and Friday

Height, thickness of its stalk, width of leaves, number of branches and number of leaves.

Plant #	Tuesday	Friday
Height
Thickness of its stalk
Width of leaves
Number of branches
Number of leaves

Plant #	Tuesday	Friday
Height
Thickness of its stalk
Width of leaves
Number of branches
Number of leaves

Plant #	Tuesday	Friday
Height
Thickness of its stalk
Width of leaves
Number of branches
Number of leaves

Plant #	Tuesday	Friday
Height
Thickness of its stalk
Width of leaves
Number of branches
Number of leaves

Plant #	Tuesday	Friday
Height
Thickness of its stalk
Width of leaves
Number of branches
Number of leaves

Plant #	Tuesday	Friday
Height
Thickness of its stalk
Width of leaves
Number of branches
Number of leaves

Thursday, Day 4

Day 5, Friday

Organisms and their Environments

Text Set

Nonfiction:

Amphibians and How They Grow. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1985.

This book outlines the basic lifecycles and diet of frogs. This book can be a great reference when we discuss life cycles of various animals through out in the unit.

Craig, Janet. Amazing World of Spiders. USA: Troll associates, 1990.

This book outlines the characteristics and behaviors of household spiders. It also talks about the various different kinds of household spiders and their basic anatomy.  This book is great as an introduction for low level readers during independent reading time. This book could provide the basic information used through out the unit.

DuTemple, Lesley A. Whales. USA: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.

This book provides a lot of information on whales. It discusses a whale’s diet, and echolocation. It also talks about whales families and goes into depth about the calf’s first year. It also talks about how the whales are endangered. This book can be a great resource when we discuss how animals depend on their environment when we discuss how some whales are endangered.

Earle, Ann. Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats. USA: Houghton Mifflin, 1995.

This book provides a lot of helpful information about bats.  It talks about a lot about the various kinds of bats, bats wing anatomy, and how some bats hibernate. It also discusses bats sonar and their bug diet. One thing I thought was cool about this book it that in the back of the book it tells you how you can construct your own bat house. This book could be a great resource when discussing animals and their environment. It could also be used to teach how bats are good the environment and not just creepy.

Magloff, Lisa. Watch Me Grow: Duckling. New York, NY: DK Publishing, Inc., 2003.

This book is for low level readers. It has simple, bold text that makes it easy to read. It has bright beautiful illustrations and pictures that really help the text very well. In the back of the book there is a glossary for some of the terms. Although the glossary covers simple terms, I think the easy reading level would help some of my struggling readers. One thing that I think is cool is that there is a few factoids and “did you know?” blocks though out the text to highlight important information. This book is great for when we discuss life cycles in our unit. I would use this book as an independent reading book for my kindergarten and first grade reading level students.

Magloff, Lisa. Watch Me Grow: Frog. New York, NY: DK Publishing, Inc., 2003.

This book is another great independent reading book for low level readers. It has great pictures, informative text and factoids, and provides a lot of information about the frog life cycle. We could also discuss how a frog depends on its environment when we discuss how frogs lay their eggs in a safe environment. This book would also make a great independent reading book for low level readers.

Straker, Joan A. Animals the Live in the Sea. USA: National Geographic Society, 1978.

This book discusses the Ocean as an environment. It gives a wide variety of animal life and unique characteristics about them. I think this book can be a great benefit to the classroom because it talks about the Ocean and the animals that live there. I chose this book because I wanted to make sure we covered more than just land animals when we discuss how animals depend on their environment. 

Yates, Irene. From Birth to Death: Life's Cycles. Brookfield, Connecticut: The Millbrook Press, 1997.

This book mainly outlines in detail the lifecycles of the frog, the dragonfly, and the Mallard duck. It discusses the various forms of life in the pond and how they are all dependent upon each other and their environment. This book will be a great resource for when we discuss life cycles. I feel that this book is also a great resource for when we discuss how animals depend on each other and their environment. This can be a great tie in book when we try to bring together all the information we have learned through out the unit.

Narrative:

Bellamy, David. The Forest: Our Changing World. New York, NY: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1988.

This book is meant to be read by 6 to 10 year olds. It is a narrative story that talks about the animals in a forest and what happens when humans knock down their trees. This can be a great book for discussing how people change their environment and how a changing environment affects other creatures. 

Fiction:

Banks, Kate. Baboon. Canada: Harper Collins Canada Ltd., 1997.

In this story a young baboon makes various comments are his mother shows him various things about his environment. This could be a great book to show how animals adapt when their environment changes. I plan to use this book when we discuss how animals depend on their environment.

Cannon, Janell. Stellaluna. USA: Scholastic Inc., 1993.

This is a wonderful book about a baby bat which is raised by birds. Only after being reunited with her mother does Stellaluna learn how to be a bat. This book can be a great item to use when comparing and contrasting different animals. I plan to use this book when we discuss the different kinds of animal life.

Dunphy, Madeleine. Here Is the Tropical Forest. New York, NY: Hyperion Books for Children, 1994.

This book uses poetic verse to describe how animals relate to one another and depend on their environment. The repetitive verse makes it usable to a choral response if read aloud to a class. I plan to use this book as a read aloud in order to introduce students to animals’ dependence on their environment and one another. This book also describes how difference species and their actions affect other species.