Lesson plan: Discovering more animal life cycles Goals & Objectives SWBAT describe familiar animals life

ife cycles IOT make connections between the classroom content and information students have been exposed to outside of this unit. SWBAT read informational text IOT gather and share relevant scientific information. SWBAT make connections between previously studied animal life cycles and new ones IOT understand how individual animal life cycles relate to general life cycle patterns.

Standards 3.1.K.A.3 Observe, compare, and describe stages of life cycles for plants and/or animals CC.1.2.K.B With prompting and support, answer questions about key details in a text. CC.1.2.K.C With prompting and support, make a connection between two individual events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text. CC.1.5.K.A Participate in collaborative conversations with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

Materials & Prep A large box of age-appropriate books (20+, in a variety of reading levels) on various animal life cycles o I will ensure that there are substantially more books than students, to enable that students will be able to find skill-appropriate, personally interesting materials Poster (made in a previous lesson) outlining the various components of life cycles Blank templates and pencils for writing about life cycles

Classroom arrangement & management issues I will essentially follow the procedures consistently followed within our classroom. That means that little additional arrangement will be required. Activities in this lesson will take place in two locations: the back carpet and student tables. The back carpet will be set up for a mini-lesson: students will be seated facing the easel where our pre-made poster on life cycles can be displayed. Students will be prearranged into established tables, and pencils will be in bins assigned to each table; templates will be held by the teacher and handed out when it is appropriate. Students should already have preassigned reading partners, and those will be used for this activity. Students will follow pre-established routines for transitions, for gathering supplies, etc. The plan 1. Part I: Discussion (~10 minutes) a. Students will briefly review the poster we will have co-created outlining the general stages of a life cycle (using the vocabulary of origin, transformations, maturity). This review will include asking students to recall specific details from life cycles we have studied which fit into the templates categories.

b. I will mention an animal that we havent discussed previously in the Life Cycles unit, but which we have discussed elsewhere in the curriculum: owls. How do owls fit into our life cycles model? i. Students will turn and talk to partners (an established classroom practice) about how they think an owls life cycle might fit with our pattern. 1. Example thinking: Origin: they begin as eggs; transformations: they grow into owlets and learn to fly; maturity; they are full-grown owls and have their own baby owls. ii. Students will be called on to share their pairs thinking with the entire class. Responses will be recorded on a life cycle chart. iii. As teacher, I will try to make extensions from owls to other animals. E.g., Owls begin life as eggs? What other animals can you think of that start life as eggs? What are some animals that we can think of that are not born as eggs? iv. The conversation will transition in this way into incorporating a broader variety of animals, and will draw upon the prior knowledge that many of our students will have about the unique ways that various animals develop (some of which has been taught in the classroom, though much will come from students outside knowledge). I will also make sure the conversation at some point includes humans, though I will try to make sure that it is a student who makes that connection without my stating it. 2. Part II: Partner reading (~20-30 minutes) a. Once we have a full board or the conversation seems to be waning, we will stop and review some of the questions that may have been generated over the course of the conversation, which students will be encouraged to explore during their partner reading. b. Students will then be divided into their assigned reading pairs. c. Pairs will come up, one at a time, to select books from my book bin i. I will supervise to help guide students to reading level-appropriate texts d. Pairs will have ~15-20 minutes to read from their books and learn about specific animal life cycles; although they are technically reading independently, I will ask them to share what they are learning with their partners. e. As pairs finish, they will come up to me and describe what they have learned about their animal life cycles. i. If I am satisfied that they have gathered and understood sufficient information, I will allow them to move on to the writers workshop phase. ii. If I believe they have not gathered or understood sufficient information, I will provide them specific guiding questions, or potentially additional texts, in order to support them further; they will then be sent to read a bit more before returning. 3. Part III: Writers Workshop (~45 minutes) a. Choosing either of the life cycles that the students or their partners have read about, students will independently illustrate and write about the life cycle of their selected animal, following the writing format practiced earlier in the week and the typical structure of the writers workshop as practiced in this classroom. b. During writers workshop, I will conference individual students with a focus on their writing development. c. When most students have finished, or the allotted time is over, students will return to the back carpet. A few students will be selected (1-2 from each student table, based

primarily on completeness of their work, though other considerations will be made) to present their papers. 4. Follow-up: present and share a. Students at each table will share with their tablemates the life cycle they are detailing. b. We will then gather, and a selection of students will present to the whole class. i. Specific elements will be highlighted, and students who are not presenting will have the opportunity to share some information with the class (e.g. Who else had an animal that ____? Theo, you did? What animal did you have?) Anticipating students responses and my possible responses I am fairly confident that, based on my previous observations of similar activities in the classroom, students will be able to perform each of these tasks adequately. However, there are always issues that can come up. For instance, students may struggle to determine how to interpret their readings and connect them to the patterns we have discussed; in this case my meetings with the groups before they move on to writing should be instrumental for assessing struggles that would impede summarizing and writing, and providing additional guidance and support to help students become prepared. Further, since they are working in partners, if one student is struggling with his or her task more than the other, I can encourage them to work together to reread and investigate the parts the student is struggling with. Assessment of goals & objectives Student responses to questions and prompts during read-aloud Meetings with student pairs after partner reading Student writing and drawing should accurately represent the content while also demonstrating appropriate technical writing proficiency and use of expected terminology

Accommodations I will ensure that the texts represent a wide variety both of literacy skill levels and of content types and that the number of texts will greatly exceed the number of students, so that no student will be forced into an inappropriate text. I will supervise distribution of texts to make sure students are finding personally appropriate material Expectations for student writing will, as with any writers workshop in this classroom, be matched to the individual student e.g. students will be held accountable for different (yet still rigorous) standards regarding spelling, punctuation, detail, etc.