Intensive

Objectives:
● Use differentiated Vocabulary
● Reinforce making predictions
● Read about building a home

Anticipatory Set (2 mins)

Ask students how communities are built? Think back about our whole group lesson from earlier.
Have you ever seen a house being built?
What do you see and hear at a construction site?
Can you tell if the workers are just starting or finishing a job? How can you tell?
Procedure (10 mins)
Vocab
● Build- to make or put up something
○ Ex: mom and I will build a doghouse this weekend
○ What things would you need to build a dog house?
● Workers-people who get paid for doing something
○ Ex: the workers fixed the hole in the street
○ Does it take many workers or just a few workers to build an office building?
● Concrete- something that can be poured and gets very hard
○ Ex: The sidewalk is made of concrete
○ Would a concrete floor feel hard or soft?
● Strong- means “tough”
○ Ex: Ana can lift the heavy box because she is strong
○ WHich is strong: a piece of paper or a steel bar?
Preview and Predict
Quickly look through pages 6-13. What do you see? WHat do you think you will learn from
these pages?

Set Purposes
I want you to think about how communities are built while we read these pages.

Make Predictions
Pages 6-7 The chapter title is “A New House” the diagram on page 7 is a plan for a new house. I
predict that this selection is going to be about building a new house. Let’s check.

Read
Pages 8-9 Ask students to respond to Strategy Tool Kit on page 9.
Why do workers need to dig a hole? (The bottom of the house will go in the hole)
Pages 10-11 Point our the on-page support on page 10
What are some details about the concrete? (thick, gets hard over time, is used for the floor of the
house)

Pages 10-13 What work has been done so far to build a house? (dig a hole, pour concrete into the
hole, build the frame)

Closing (2 min)
What do workers do first when they are building a house? (Dig a hole)
Why do builders probably use concrete for the floor of a building? (It is strong and hard)
Strategic

Objectives:
● Use differentiated vocabulary
● Reinforce making predictions
● Read about tall buildings

Anticipatory Set (2 mins)

Some communities have very tall buildings. The book we will be reading is called Touching the
Sky and it is about tall buildings.

What do you think is the tallest building in Dubuque?

Procedure (11 mins)
Vocab
● Instead-means “in place of”
○ Ex: I wanted an apple, but I had a peach instead
○ Your favorite book isn’t at the book store: WHere can you look for it instead?
● Cheaply-means “in a way that costs less than usual”
○ Ex: She traveled cheaply by using her bike
○ If you bought something cheaply, did you spend a lot of money or a little money?
● Pieces-means “bits”
○ Ex: When I dropped the plate, it broke into many pieces
○ Which game has many pieces: a jump rope or a puzzle?

Preview and Predict

Look through pages 6-15 quickly.
What do you see?
What do you predict we will learn about after looking at this?

Set Purpose
Remember to focus on our question: How are communities built? While reading.

Make Predictions
When readers make predictions, they use what they know and information in the text to make a
best guess about what they will learn or what happens in the text. Making predictions helps
readers better understand what they read.

Looking at pages 6 and 7 I predict that this selection is about tall buildings because this selection
is called “touching the sky” and I see a photo of tall buildings on page 6. Now, let’s see if I was
correct.
Read
Read the first 2 chapters of Touching the Sky

The text describes what happens when cities get bigger. Instead of spreading out, people built
upward. I think that’s what the photos on pages 6 and 7 show. I’ll read on to find out how
people built such tall buildings.

Ask for volunteers to read:

6-9 So far, the text is more about how people learned to make tall buildings than about cities
growing.

Can anyone name a material the builders used and why the materials did not work well? (wood-
not very strong, stones-too heavy)

10-11 Was your prediction about the text on the pages right? How do you know?

12-13 How are buildings made from steel different from buildings made from other materials?
(Buildings made from steel had the from on the inside so the outside could be made of light, thin
material)

Closing (2 mins)
WHy is steel a good material for tall buildings? (It is strong and light)
What do you think you will learn about in the next section? (Make a prediction)
Benchmark
Objectives
● Use differentiated vocabulary
● Reinforce making predictions
● Read about ecology in communities

Anticipatory Set
We are going to be talking about Eco-Communities. An Eco-community is a community where
people take care of the environment and use less energy. I want you to keep our focus question in
mind as we talk about our book. How are communities built?

Procedure
Vocab
● Trash- includes things that people don’t want.
○ Ex: Mom put the broken dish in the trash
○ Do you pur things you want or things you do not want in the trash?
● Material
● Carefully
● Harm

Preview/Predict/Set Purposes
Flip through Chapters 1 and 2
Pay close attention to the chapter titles, images, captions and sidebar features.

What do you think you are going to learn and read about?

Read
Read page 7
This talks about what communities need. I wonder if growing communities can get all
the things they need. I’ll keep reading to see if I can find out.

6-9 What is the most important information on these pages? (communities need resources)

10-11 Summarize why energy is important in a growing community. (Growing communities

need more energy to meet all the residents’ needs)

12-13 What can people do to use less energy?

Closing
What do you think we are going to read about next time?
Advanced
Objectives
● Use differentiated vocabulary
● Reinforce making predictions
● Read about parts of cities that are underground

Anticipatory Set
Today we are focusing on How are communities buil and we will be looking at the book The
Hidden City.

What might be underground in our community? (Water pipes. Some cities have underground
transportation)

Procedure
Vocab
● Maintenance- the act of keeping things in good order
○ Ex: Part of the maintenance of the house was taking care of the yard
○ How would you perform maintenance on a bike?
● Cables
● Communicate
● Improved
● Branch
● Empty

Preview/Predict/Set Purposes
Flip through pages 6-15
Pay close attention to the chapter titles, images, captions and sidebar features.

What do you think you are going to learn and read about?

Read
Read pages 6-9 to yourself. Why do people put things in a city underground? (Pipes and wires
can be heavy, take up space and look ugly. Placing wires, pipes, and trains underground keeps
them out of the way)

Pages 10-11 to yourself Study the last sentence on page 11. What do you predict the author will
tell about next? (how people leaned to get clean water to towns and cities)
10-15 How does the way people get their water today differ from how they got it in the past?
(Today, we get water from the city water supply. People used to get it from wells, rivers, or
lakes)

Closing
What was one interesting thing you learned from this section?