Connecting Author’s Purpose and Organizational Patterns
Students explore and analyze how the author can achieve a specific purpose by using a variety of organizational patterns.
Syntax Shuffle
Students will analyze one of four ways to incorporate grammar and syntax into their everyday language through the use of technological instruction. Once students have comprehended their grammatical type, they will practice among their peers to master and share the lesson (grammar rule) in a Jigsaw activity.
Organized Authors: Name That Structure
Students will read a text passage, looking for and highlighting key words that indicate the appropriate organizational pattern of the text.
Students working
Earth’s Movements
Students will work in small collaborative groups to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth as it revolves around the Sun which creates a day and night cycle.
Civil War Inferring
Students will use Social Studies Weekly newspaper to make inferences about historical events using schema and text evidence.
Sticky Note Summarizing
Students will determine the important parts of a story and recognize and compose an individual summary by using color-coordinated sticky notes and the Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then (SWBST) strategy. Students will practice correctly identifying the parts of the SWBST strategy during a read-aloud. Students will work in groups and read a short story together, identify key components, and compose a written summary. Students will demonstrate their ability to recognize a good summary by writing two components of summarization on an exit ticket.
Demonstration and Analysis of Dihybrid Crosses
The students will review related vocabulary, watch the teacher model a dihybrid cross, and then perform a dihybrid cross and answer questions about the outcomes with a partner.
Put on Your Detective Cap: Making Inferences
Students pretend to be detectives while being presented with various pictorial and textual clues that lead them to make an overall inference about what happened on Tuesday.
Summarizing as a Reading Strategy
Students work collaboratively using reading and comprehension skills to demonstrate their mastery of summarizing a text or piece of literature.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
Who Is the Culprit?
Engaging in a crime scene investigation, students will collaboratively examine the evidence, make inferences about their observations, and write a detailed description of the crime. Students will then read an informational text about investigating a crime scene and answer inference questions.
Biotic and Abiotic Factors of an Ecosystem
Students will explore abiotic and biotic factors in various ecosystems by working through stations. Students will be able to identify and describe abiotic and biotic factors within an ecosystem.
Convergent Plate Boundaries
Students will design and test models that will identify crustal features formed by convergent plate boundaries.
Full Speed Ahead
Students will use hover pucks to measure speed over a distance of six meters. Once speed has been calculated, students will determine velocity using the same data. Finally, students will be able to label all points of acceleration.
Uses of Energy Lab
Students will rotate through lab stations equipped with objects and videos as they explore the uses and conversion of five different types of energy.
Going on an Expedition
Students observe how dunes and canyons are created through agents of erosion by weathering and erosion.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
Motion Pictures
In this lesson, students will be introduced to the concept of motion representation using distance vs. time graphs. Students will recognize labeling of axes, steepness related to speed, horizontal lines as non-motion, and downward slope as return to origin.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Related to the Unit
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to this unit.
Earth: A Tilted Affair
After a brief review of direct and indirect sunlight, students will arrange heat maps and globes around a drawing of the Sun based on the tilt of Earth and how it affects Earth’s temperature.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Related to the Unit
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to this unit.
Main Idea
Students will identify supporting details and the main idea in a passage.
Manifest Density
Students will design a foil boat and add mass to test relative density.
Students describing how they got their boat to float.
Inference in the Real World: Using Clues to Identify Key Details
Students will actively read as a critical component; they will infer in expository text.