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.
Paired Passages with a Purpose
Students will make inferences about the author’s purpose after reading paired passages involving the same subject.
Decoding Word Problems
This lesson focuses on multi-step word problems involving division along with addition or subtraction. The students chunk word problems into each individual step and learn how to choose a familiar strategy.
Poetry With Purpose
Students collaborate in small groups to discuss their peers’ poetry and assess the poetry according to the student-created rubric. The rubric assesses students’ ability to make meaningful connections to the poetic devices in their poetry. Through collaboration, they are building a culture of receptiveness among their peers.
Inferring with Dr. Seuss
Students will work collaboratively in groups as they practice their inferring skills using children’s literature books.
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.
Trip to the Theme Park
Students will work on a real-world based project in class involving multiplication of decimals requiring budgeting skills.
Write, Revise, Repeat!
Students develop their perseverance skills as they continue to revise their writing for coherence. The teacher focuses on providing students with three tools to develop the students’ paragraphs for sentence-to-sentence connectedness and clarity.
Inferring the Message in Poems
Students look for meaning in poems using poetry tools and work in groups to identify how parts of poems fit together to give a message. They then independently infer the message from a poem their teacher reads.
Main Idea
Students will identify supporting details and the main idea in a passage.
Models of Multiplication
Students will solve one-step multiplication problems using various multiplication strategies such as objects, pictorial models, arrays, equal groups, repeated addition, and number lines.
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.
Up, Up, and Away
Students will determine an appropriate tabular/graphic/formulaic linear solution given 3 sets of data points.
Distributive Property
Students break an array apart to represent the sum of two multiplication facts, showing the distributive property.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Related to the Unit
As we looked at the vertical alignment document available to teachers through the Texas Education Agency and regional TEKS resource pages, it became evident why students struggle with this standard. The skills and knowledge within this standard are not addressed in the second-grade TEKS. Students are also required to use multiple skills to correctly calculate the answer using the distributive property. The chosen standard is identified as a third-grade readiness standard, which means that the intent is to help students develop a deep understanding of how to effectively use these skills in mathematics. This deep understanding is desired to help students at the fourth-grade level since the standard is identified as a supporting standard.
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Dividing Fractions
Students will model dividing unit fractions and whole numbers.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Related to the Unit
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to this unit. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
Summarizing Expository Text
The students will watch the teacher model how to create a summary, and then work in groups to create a summary from an expository text.
Teacher with students in small group
How Authors Develop Complex Yet Believable Characters in Drama by Contrasting Characters
The students will identify characteristics of characters from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, explain why the characters are foils to each other, and use text evidence to support their understanding.
Analyzing Data Using a Dot Plot
Students will construct a dot plot using data collected on the faces of a cube after it is rolled. Students will then use a key to change the data to represent a larger population.
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.
Evaluating Inferences
Students will evaluate a set of inferences to determine if they are valid or invalid and use text evidence to support their stance. The lesson incorporates best practices for English learners (ELs) and at-risk students such as the use of graphic organizers, anchor charts, and cooperative learning.
Santa Timeline Breakout
Students collaborate and critically-think to analyze resources from informational texts of various disciplines and unlock a breakout box. Once the box is unlocked, students receive a final text to summarize.
Give a Hoot . . . Fraction Scoot
Students will add and subtract unlike denominators using pictorial models and manipulatives. During the lesson, they will use both group and independent work to build confidence as they use a variety of formative assessments to check for understanding. The final activity in the lesson has both application of the concepts being taught and a personal reflection of understanding.
Finding Common Denominators
Students will work collaboratively to explore and sketch solutions to real-world addition problems involving fractions with unlike denominators. Students will be given the opportunity to use manipulatives and participate in group discussions to reflect on their learning.
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.