Our Program KG2-G5
Welcome to AIS-R’s Kg2-Gr.5 school programs page. Here you will find specific information about our curriculum, home learning, food services, after school activities parent partnerships and communication.
Curriculum Descriptions:
- All Kg2-Gr. 5 Curriculum Descriptions for both Homeroom Content Areas and Specialists can be found on our AIS-R ES Curriculum Site and/or our ES Student Parent Handbook HERE.
Home Learning
Home learning is dependent upon student need and is assigned respectively. Homeroom teachers determine a student’s specific need for home learning due to absence and/or the need for further practice. When assigned, home learning is communicated with the respective parents/families (i.e. email, assignment notebook) and does not exceed 30 minutes in Gr.1-3 and 45 minutes in Gr.4-5. Kg2 students are not assigned home learning.
Animals & Allergies:
Our learning environments support the natural curiosity of our AIS-R Eagles and therefore incorporates natural elements such as plants, soil/sand, flowers, and fruits/vegetables as well as the care for several live animals of different species to include but not limited to birds, lizards, and small mammals (guinea pigs, hamsters, etc.). Should a child be allergic in such conditions, accommodations may be possible within our program parameters, but cannot be guaranteed. Modifications to the program such as removal and/or relocation of an animal(s)/natural elements (during student attendance) cannot be accommodated. It is the expectation of the parent to inform the nurse of their children’s allergies. No child is admitted to AIS-R without a completed medical form.
After School Activities:
The ES After School Activities Program offers a wide range of activities for students in Grades 1-5.
After School Clubs are designed to provide fun ways for kids to further explore their interests, learn new skills, and gain new experiences. After School Clubs are facilitated by individual teachers, and are usually tailored to a specific grade level band.
After School Sports are available for Grade 4 and Grade 5 students. Students can register to play soccer, badminton, basketball and track & field during their respective seasons. After School Sports teams will practice twice a week and the season will conclude with an intramural tournament.
ALPS is a paid, after school language program which offers students the opportunity to continue the development of their Arabic speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.
All After School Activities are scheduled from 3:30-4:30 (times adjusted during Ramadan). To participate in any After School Activities, whether it be a club, sport, or ALPS, parents need to register the child and arrange transportation accordingly.
Parent Partnerships and Communication:
Open, honest and ongoing communication is critical to the success of the educational partnership we strive for between students, parents and teachers. We ask that you follow the Parent Communication Flowchart when communicating concerns. The following are sources for school related information:
- K-12 Activity Calendar:A calendar of all AIS-R events is distributed to all students.
- Email: Families can email teachers and administration with questions and concerns.
- Eagle Central: A weekly newsletter of upcoming events, articles, and items of special interest to parents and students is emailed to all parents and can be viewed online through our school app.
- SeeSaw: An ePortfolio learning platform that allows students to demonstrate their understanding specific of learning goals in both homeroom and Specialist classes.
- PowerSchool: Is our school information system that allows parents to view their child's report cards, MAP scores, and school messages. Each parent is issued an AIS-R email address and password to log into PowerSchool. Please keep your contact information up-to-date so that we can send you important updates about your child's education
- Website: Browse the school’s website to find general information about each grade level and general school information www.aisr.org.
- AIS-R APP: Houses the latest news, daily updates, events, social media, and pictures of what is happening at AIS-R (Apple and Android).
Elementary School Curriculum
Literacy
Literacy learning experiences are designed to engage and support each of our students so that they learn to communicate effectively and also choose to live rich literate lives well beyond their elementary years. Through a balanced literacy framework, students read, write, speak, and listen in a variety of settings every day. Reading and writing is purposeful, with multiple opportunities for discussion. Teacher modeling and student partnerships push students to extend their thinking and experiment with new strategies. Listening and speaking are essential components in this integrated language approach.
Dimensions of Balanced Literacy Include:
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Read-aloud (with accountable talk)
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Shared reading
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Phonics/Word Study
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Grammar/Conventions
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Shared/Interactive Writing
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Small Group Instruction (Guided reading, strategy lessons, and book clubs)
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Writing Workshop
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Reading Workshop
Reading and Writing Workshop
As part of the balanced literacy framework, AIS-R implements reading and writing workshops in elementary classes, Grades KG2-Grade 5. Based on the research and resources developed by Lucy Calkins and others involved in the Reading and Writing Project out of the Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, this approach engages students as authentic, lifelong readers and writers. A consistent structure of a short whole group lesson, followed by time to practice skills independently, in partnerships, or in small groups and a closing share to consolidate and reflect on learning supports teachers in meeting the diverse needs of all students.
Speaking and Listening
AIS-R recognizes that learning to talk and listen are critical skills, and as such, teachers provide opportunities for students to develop as communicators who can captivate an audience, motivate, persuade, and inform, not solely with the content of their message, but also in the delivery. In the context of dialogic classrooms, talk is explicitly scaffolded and modeled. Some key approaches that teachers apply:
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Interactions which encourage students to think in different ways
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Questions which invite more than simple recall
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Answers which must be justified, followed up, and built upon
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Feedback which informs and leads thinking forward
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Contributions which are extended
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Exchanges which chain together into coherent and deepening lines of inquiry
KG2
Reading Workshop Unit
- Unit 1: We are Readers
- Unit 2: Super Powers: Reading with Print Strategies and Sight Word Power
- Unit 3: Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles
- Unit 4: Becoming Avid Readers
Unit 1: We are Readers
This introduction to the reading workshop invites children to feel and act like readers. The goal is for children to finish this unit with a confident sense of reading identity. Students will see, experience, and understand how books are filled with information and stories that they can read and share with others. Through this unit, they will learn to love to read while they also learn how to read. Children will learn concepts-of- print as well as receive an introduction to good reading habits. Children can learn to notice and name what is on the pages, they can look at a picture thinking, “What does this page say?” to generate stories to accompany these pictures. As readers, students will begin to apply their developing reading knowledge including knowledge of letter-sound correspondence, comprehension, and fluency.
Unit 2: Super Powers: Reading with Print Strategies and Sight Word Power
Students will continue to practice the habits of readers that they have been developing: sitting quietly with books, choosing lots of books at a time, and discussing books with partners. They will also continue to 'warm up' before reading by looking at the front and back of the books they select and do picture walks. In this unit, readers will learn to pay close attention to the words they are reading as well as look at the pictures to help make meaning from the words. Children will apply their developing word study knowledge and use cues to continue to develop as a reader.
Unit 3: Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles
This unit is designed to support the work of readers as they begin to explore books of increasing difficulty. They will study the ways in which books are becoming harder (noticing patterns across books), and use their knowledge of letters, sounds, and the structure of stories and language to solve tricky words. Additionally, this unit places a particular emphasis on reading high-frequency words with automaticity, and on thinking and talking about books—critical components of reading at level C and beyond. Ultimately, the goal of this unit is to support the orchestration of ALL the strategies they have developed over the course of the school year to read more complex books with accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.
Unit 4: Becoming Avid Readers
This unit is designed to highlight the readers that students have developed into throughout the year. They are no longer just readers - they are avid readers! This unit focuses less on new skills, and more on making sure that what the children have learned has been internalized and automatic. Immersed in books, poetry and songs, children are encouraged to take more responsibility in making decisions about what and how to read. Across these multiple contexts, they will practice and solidify learning, paying close attention to characters, setting, and plot while reading fictional stories, becoming experts in nonfiction topics, and playing with rhyme and rhythm while reading poetry.
Writing Workshop Units
- Unit 1: Building a Talking Community
- Unit 2: Launching Writing Workshop
- Unit 3: Writing for Readers
- Unit 4: How To Books: Writing to Teach Others
- Unit 5: Persuasive Writing of All Kinds
Unit 1: Building a Talking Community
Writing begins with oral telling of stories. This foundational unit builds on what children already know how to do and lays the groundwork for writing workshop. As students begin telling stories, they learn about each other and through talk, the young writers learn that talk can help us think through a story and lead to more detailed stories.
Unit 2: Launching Writing Workshop
Kindergartners enter school ready to read and write like big kids, to learn alongside classmates, and to take the world by storm. This first unit capitalizes on that excitement and channels it into writing all-about books and stories. Simultaneously, children will learn what it means to be part of a writing workshop and the roles they are to play in all the various parts of a writing workshop. As part of this, they will learn how to work with each other as partners--planning together, sharing drafts, giving each other help. They will learn to ask and answer questions about texts, and they’ll begin to develop ideas about authors, illustrators, and genres. This launching unit is critical in establishing clear structures that children will carry with them throughout the year.
Unit 3: Writing for Readers
In this unit students will study the connections between the work we do as readers and the work we do as writers, all the while writing true stories of moments from their lives. The teachers will revisit many of the strategies children learned when learning to write true stories in ways that make them interesting as well as easy to read - giving them ample practice with the process of drawing and revising. The students will continue to practice the rich storytelling work students engaged in at the start of the year. Wherever the students are on the progression towards conventional writing, the teacher will help writers to explore ways to write, revise, and refine their writing.
Unit 4: How To Books: Writing to Teach Others
In this unit, the students learn how to teach something to an audience by drawing and writing a sequence of steps. They will learn that one purpose of writing is to teach others. Children will understand that writers not only use their writing to tell the rich stories of their lives, or to label their environment or to celebrate others, but also to teach others. As informational text writers, they will tap into their inner expert, notice the procedure and steps involved in things they do, consider their audience as well as their purpose for writing, revise texts to make them better, and share.
Unit 5: Persuasive Writing of All Kinds
Kindergarteners writers will learn that they can write to make their classroom, their school, and their world into a better place. They have been writing particular kinds of texts for specific real audiences, and in this unit, the children will do lots and lots of persuasive writing. They begin by writing signs, songs, petitions, and letters about problems they see in their classroom and their school, and then they address problems they identify in the larger world of their neighborhood. As they progress towards addressing concerns that are not right underfoot, they tackle slightly more distant topics and address more distant audiences, they meanwhile also learn more about persuasive writing and writing in general.
Grade 1
Reading Workshop Units
- Unit 1: Building Good Reading Habits
- Unit 2: Learning About the World: Reading Nonfiction
- Unit 3: Readers Have Big Jobs to Do: Fluency, Phonics, Comprehension
- Unit 4: Meeting Characters and Learning Lessons
Unit 1: Building Good Reading Habits
In this introductory unit, students develop community as readers, learn the structures and routines of the workshop model, and establish the foundation for the reading that they will do throughout the year. Students will be pushed to build meaning before, during and after reading. They learn about the importance of making predictions, as well as how they can revise and confirm these predictions along the way. Students begin to develop the habits for previewing texts, for tackling hard words, and for finding just-right books for themselves. Finally, students will learn the good habits that reading partners have when working together as a reading team: they help their partner think backwards across a book to retell and remember the important parts - and to think ahead setting goals.
Unit 2: Learning About the World: Reading Nonfiction
This nonfiction unit is designed to embrace the natural curiosity of children and use it to further develop each student’s reading abilities. The sentence, “Books help us learn about the world.” will engage student interest and cultivate a desire to begin using books as a source of information to learn about the world around them. During the first bend of the unit, students learn how to become “super smart” about the topics that interest them. They will use different comprehension strategies such as previewing a text, predicting, noticing text structure and synthesizing information from multiple sources (picture, print and text box) to learn more about their subject(s). They will also learn how the illustrations can provide valuable information to further their understanding of the subject. The second bend focuses on vocabulary, as students continue to add to their strategies for decoding unfamiliar words and also learn about keywords, a feature of nonfiction texts. During the third and final bend, the focus turns to building fluency while reading a variety of nonfiction texts. Students plan their own read a louds for an audience of kindergarteners.
Unit 3: Readers Have Big Jobs to Do: Fluency, Phonics, Comprehension
In this unit, students learn to monitor their reading, to take action when they encounter problems, to use efficient strategies for solving words and to check in on their comprehension as they begin to read longer texts. First students learn that they have big important jobs as readers, and they are the ‘boss’ of their reading. Students learn they do something when they run into trouble with a word; proficient readers don’t skip the word, learners roll up their sleeves and get to work when they see that there is a problem. As learners, they will take charge and initiate action when in trouble during their independent reading time. Students will use what they have learned during word study and reading mini-lessons, applying what they know about spelling patterns, drawing on sight words in text, and using all of the strategies that they have learned to solve problems in their reading.
Unit 4: Meeting Characters and Learning Lessons
This unit is all about the power of the story; the making of meaning that is vital for readers to comprehend and remember what occurs throughout a story. Students will go on their reading adventures by paying attention to where and when the story is happening. They will track the events of the story by noticing the shifts in setting, using pictures and words to keep track of the story events, and paying attention to the character. Along the way students will make predictions that look ahead and anticipate what’s to come. Students will hold on to longer and more complex texts by determining importance to retell key details in sequence. Students will closely study the characters to learn all they can about main and secondary characters. In order to sound like the characters as they read, students will identify how the characters feel through what they say or think. Finally, the students will pull life lessons from their stories by connecting to their own lives in order to identify the author’s message.
Writing Workshop Units
- Unit 1: Small Moments: Writing with Focus, Detail, and Dialogue
- Unit 2: Nonfiction Chapter Books
- Unit 3: Writing Reviews
- Unit 4: From Scenes to Stories
Unit 1: Small Moments: Writing with Focus, Detail, and Dialogue
In this launching unit, students will develop their identity as writers, as they learn the structures and routines of the workshop, and write about small moments or single events from their life. They will write with detail, including showing a character’s small actions, dialogue, and internal thinking. Students will learn to touch and tell their stories, then sketch and write, so that they can move independently through the writing process. They will learn word-solving skills to avoid becoming paralyzed or derailed when they come to hard words that they would like to use in their writing. Students learn to bring their stories to life by slowing down to develop each part bit by bit. A mentor author is used to help students learn “craft moves” they can utilize to elaborate their stories. Finally, students publish a story by using a few final revision and editing strategies to make their best writing even better. Students will use a checklist to edit and reflect upon their writing.
Unit 2: Nonfiction Chapter Books
This unit provides students with the opportunity to teach their audience everything that they know about the world. Throughout the unit, students will write many information texts, revisit the texts and revise them independently. They will practice using a teaching voice in their writing while teaching their reader new and interesting words and drawings on each page of their book. In the second bend of the unit, students will focus on how to organize their material into chapters with a table of contents, and experiment with new ways to elaborate: comparisons, examples, and elements of persuasion. The third and final bend will have the children writing chapter books with greater speed and independence. They will learn how to do basic research, revise their texts, and explore different forms of punctuation. At the end of the unit, students will celebrate by sharing their favorite book from all of the ones that they’ve written, with an audience.
Unit 3: Writing Reviews
The first part of this unit is rooted in the idea that most six year olds love collecting things, and what a person collects can inspire writing. This writing will become the introduction to writing reviews. During the second part of this unit students will write review after review, writing about anything and everything: toys, restaurants, video games, the works. In the last section of this unit students will learn to express their opinions about books through persuasive book reviews. Students will practice using the ‘Think, Touch, Tell, and Sketch’ strategy, write across multiple pages, apply inventive spelling, and utilize the writers’ checklist to revise and edit for proper punctuation, comma and capitalization.
Unit 4: From Scenes to Stories
This unit is designed to give students the opportunity to dig deeper into storytelling and planning for stories. Students will learn that characters in stories face problems, overcome these (with help from others or on their own), and then develop solutions. They will develop their own characters to use in the stories they create. In this unit they will deepen their partner work and continue to learn strategies to revise their writing. Children will be taught how to move from being accomplished storytellers to becoming accomplished writers of stories.
Grade 2
Reading Workshop Unit
- Unit 1: Second-Grade Reading Growth Spurt
- Unit 2: Becoming Experts Reading Nonfiction
- Unit 3: Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power
- Unit 4: Series Book Clubs
Unit 1: Second-Grade Reading Growth Spurt
In second grade, children move from a “little-kid” focus on print to a “big-kid” focus on meaning. This first unit continues to establish routines and expectations for reading workshop, and teaches children to take charge of their reading lives. Students will learn to take charge of their reading life by participating in their new classroom community, reading independently, and working with partners. They will begin to develop routines for selecting and recording book information. Throughout the unit, students will be encouraged to draw on everything they know to figure out hard words, understand the author's craft, and build big ideas about the books they read.
Unit 2: Becoming Experts Reading Nonfiction
In this unit, students shift from reading fiction to nonfiction. Students will read a wide range of nonfiction on different topics, both familiar and unfamiliar. In Bend one, students will learn that nonfiction readers grow knowledge by studying, noticing details, and questioning texts as they read. Bend two works to tackle both tricky word work and vocabulary development students need to navigate nonfiction reading. Bend three sets readers up to grow knowledge across texts as they read topic sets of texts, comparing, contrasting, and connecting information across texts and text sets. Another big emphasis for second grade readers is partnerships. Partnerships will teach each other about the topics they are reading about. Throughout the unit, they will not only learn how to approach and navigate through nonfiction texts with questions and ideas in mind, but also how to read nonfiction with a voice that matches the content.
Unit 3: Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power
The focus for this unit is the study of foundational reading skills, namely fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Students will revisit what it looks and sounds like to read books with a smooth, expressive voice. In the second bend, students explore texts with rich figurative language. They learn to read closely and to monitor for sense. As they read longer texts, students are reminded to slow down, reread, and jot ideas on post-its. Finally, students work together in clubs to make and reach goals. To celebrate this unit, students will teach others about reading.
Unit 4: Series Book Clubs
Through familiar series books, students learn how to become experts on characters they are reading about. They collect information about their characters, pay attention to how characters respond to problems, and notice similarities in characters across their series. As this unit unfolds, they learn that readers use what they know about the characters to predict events. Students will reread books and engage in inquiry, thinking about the craft the writer uses to bring their stories to life. In the final bend of the unit, students will begin to invent ways to share their books with others. They swap books and share their opinions with their partners.
Writing Workshop Units
- Unit 1: Lessons from the Masters: Improve Narrative Writing
- Unit 2: The How-To Guide for Nonfiction Writing
- Unit 3: Writing About Reading
- Unit 4: Poetry: Big Thoughts in Small Packages
Unit 1: Lessons from the Masters: Improve Narrative Writing
This unit is designed as an introduction to the second grade writing workshop. Students will learn procedures for participating in their new classroom community, writing independently, and working with partners. Students will become familiar with the routines and expectations of each classroom as well as engage in writing to build stamina and independence. Students will continue with their small moment stories by brainstorming topic choices, planning/rehearsing their stories, sketching, and writing with emphasis on editing and revising too. Writers will study the craft of an author(s) and incorporate these craft moves into their own writing, using them to craft stories that readers are eager to read. Students will craft stories to recount a well-elaborated event, including details, thoughts, actions, feelings, and a sense of closure.
Unit 2: The How-To Guide for Nonfiction Writing
In this unit, students become expert writers and teach their readers about areas of personal expertise. To launch the unit, children will be invited to the nonfiction section of the library. There, they will notice that none of their nonfiction books live on those shelves--The only way to remedy that is to begin writing nonfiction of their own! Students will study other nonfiction authors, noticing the interesting and cool things they do to teach in their books, and begin trying those moves in their own writing right away! Once students have written a few books, they will set goals using an information checklist. Second grade writers will not only choose topics, but choose an audience. Writers will ask, “What information does my audience want to know?” In the final bend, students will be prompted to consider information in a new way: question-and-answer book, a story that teaches, or a how-to book. Students will study mentors of these kinds of books, focusing on the structure. Writers will provide each other feedback and use tools from the unit to help them prepare their books for publishing.
Unit 3: Writing About Reading
In this opinion writing unit, children learn to write about beloved books in ways that persuade others to love them as much as they do. Writers will form opinions about the books they read, thinking deeply about characters within and across series. Throughout the unit, children will practice stating clear opinions and supporting these ideas with evidence. Students will elevate their opinion writing skills, introducing the book they are writing about, supplying more than one supportive reason, linking parts together, and providing a longer, more formalized ending. This important work sets the foundation for writers as they move on to third grade and beyond.
Unit 4: Poetry: Big Thoughts in Small Packages
In this unit, students will find the significance in the ordinary details of their lives, employ strategies of revision, and learn from mentor authors to craft poetry. This unit will give students the opportunity to use language in extraordinary ways. Students will experiment with sensory details, the use of line breaks, metaphor, and comparison to convey feeling. By the end of this unit, students will be able to create clear images with precise and extravagant language. They learn to look at things from their poet’s eyes, and to use visualization and figures of speech to make their writing more clear and powerful.
Grade 3
Reading Workshop Unit
- Unit 1: Building a Reading Life (Fiction)
- Unit 2: Reading to Learn (Nonfiction)
- Unit 3: Character Studies
- Unit 4: Research Clubs (Nonfiction)
Unit 1: Building a Reading Life (Fiction)
This unit launches the upper grade reading workshop, inviting students to fashion their own identities as people who care about reading. Students practice the lifelong habits of strong readers, learning to choose books that are just right, getting a lot of reading done, keeping track of how reading is going, and addressing problems along the way. Students also work on word solving, vocabulary development, envisioning, predicting and retelling.
Unit 2: Reading to Learn (Nonfiction)
The third graders begin their study of nonfiction with this unit. They are immersed in nonfiction reading; reading for fluency and learning to make mental summaries. These summaries contain the big ideas and supporting information they take away from the books as they read. Through mini-lessons, skill groups, and strategy groups the children acquire study skills such as note taking using boxes and bullets and Post-it notes. As the children move through the unit they compare texts, thinking critically about what they are learning. Finally, the children apply their skills to the reading of narrative nonfiction; using their knowledge of story structure to learn about the lives of people in their study of biographies.
Unit 3: Character Studies
This unit brings a return to fiction for a close study of characters and continues to support students in the foundational skills that were front and center during the first fiction unit of the year. The students will continue to develop the narrative reading skills they started working on during the first unit, but now dig deeper, analyzing characters and trying to understand what motivates them. Children investigate patterns that reveal deeper traits and motivations and use those theories to make predictions as they follow their character on his or her journey across the story. During the last phase, students learn how to compare and contrast characters along with the problems characters encounter and how they react, the settings, and the lessons characters learn.
Unit 4: Research Clubs (Nonfiction)
This unit builds on what students have already learned in the unit, Reading to Learn. Students form clubs, and each club studies an animal. Children preview the collection of texts on their animal and then each take a subtopic at a time and read across books on that subtopic. They start with an easier book so as to develop the background knowledge needed to handle more detailed and challenging texts. Eventually, clubs transfer what they learned into the study of a second animal as they compare and contrast across animals. The unit ends with children applying their knowledge of animals to solve real-world problems, such as creating a better habitat for animals in zoos or investigating why certain animals are no longer thriving in their environments. This unit also sets the stage for independent research projects that students tackle in later grades.
Writing Workshop Units
- Unit 1: Crafting True Stories
- Unit 2: The Art of Information Writing
- Unit 3: Changing the World: Persuasive Speeches, Petitions and Editorials
- Unit 4: Traditional Literature - Adapting and Writing Fairy Tales
Unit 1: Crafting True Stories
In this unit, the children write focused personal narratives, with an emphasis on craftsmanship and revision. They study exemplar texts by other authors, notice the use of precise words and telling details, and experiment with the strategies that they are noticing in the work of published authors. Establishing structures and routines of a third-grade writing workshop is a vital part of the beginning of this unit. The children learn more about structuring stories so that their writing pieces will engage a reader from start to finish. Besides the work of crafting strong writing, the children continue to learn important information about the mechanics of writing, including paragraphing, punctuation, and spelling.
Unit 2: The Art of Information Writing
This unit focuses on the use of writing as a tool to synthesize, organize, reflect on, and teach knowledge. Students use mentor texts that highlight qualities of strong informational writing, and are taught many different ways to elaborate on their topics, learning to include facts, definitions, and other important details. In addition to this, third-graders learn to use transition words that connect these ideas, definitions and facts. Finally, students prepare for publication by being aware of their audience, attending to text features, fact checking, and applying language conventions.
Unit 3: Changing the World: Persuasive Speeches, Petitions and Editorials
In the third unit of study, students channel their opinions into writing that can make a difference. This is a unit that helps students realize that their voices have power and that well-supported opinions can and do change the world. Students learn to introduce topics and support these by listing reasons and using transition words to connect the various parts of their pieces. This unit also works to help students meet key language standards placing a specific focus on helping students write to affect others and to choose words for effect. Transferring what students know about spelling patterns, transfer work from word study to writing, and spelling high-frequency words is also emphasized in this unit.
Unit 4: Traditional Literature - Adapting and Writing Fairy Tales
Through the use of Fairy Tales as mentor texts, students learn to write with a story arc, to bring the resonance of a storyteller’s voice onto the page, to create the world of a story, and to bring characters to life. Students move through three narrative writing cycles, writing two adaptations of fairy tales as well as their own original fairy tale. These multiple writing cycles allow students to practice important writing lessons - structuring stories so that the reader can’t turn the page fast enough; finding precise words and phrases to capture a moment, an image, and emotion; and, above all else, writing with a storyteller’s voice. Through this unit, students come to see the value of hard work and become more willing to revise their writing because each fairy tale draft improves upon the last.
Grade 4
Reading Workshop Unit
- Unit 1: Interpreting Characters: The Heart of the Story
- Unit 2: Reading the Weather, Reading the World: Purposeful Reading of Nonfiction
- Unit 3: Historical Fiction Book Clubs
- Unit 4: Reading History
Unit 1: Interpreting Characters: The Heart of the Story
The first unit of the year is designed to challenge children to read a text with deep engagement and intensity. The heart of any good story is character, so children are taught to read intensely to grow ideas about their characters. The unit builds on the reading that they have done in previous grades, in order to build interpretations and draw evidence-based conclusions. There is strong emphasis on being able to use the actual text to support one’s ideas about characters, theme, and looking to see how one part of a story is important to the entire structure of the text. Students will learn how to do a chronological summary and how to synthesize information to grow big ideas.
Unit 2: Reading the Weather, Reading the World: Purposeful Reading of Nonfiction
This informational unit has been designed to help educate a generation of young people to have the necessary skills of reasoning, analyzing, weighing evidence and problem solving. Students will be reading informational texts that focus on extreme weather as they learn to read purposefully to investigate and grow ideas on a given topic. They will synthesize information from multiple sources and blend that into a deeper understanding on a topic. They will determine main ideas and supporting details, and do important analytic work by studying the goals and techniques of informational writers.
Unit 3: Historical Fiction Book Clubs
This unit develops reading skills in both literature and informational texts. The unit moves fourth graders along a very ambitious trajectory of skills, as they read historical fiction and research historical events. Students build their knowledge of historical events by reading texts that may seem to be an easy read, even viewing videos to get some understanding of this time and place. As the unit moves along, students read increasingly challenging texts, and learn to use text structure to help them take notes. They learn to understand perspectives, and how different points of view may contribute to the telling of history. As part of this unit, students will engage in debate, using evidence they have researched to support their case. Students continue with more research focusing on self selected topics from the past.
Unit 4: Reading History
Digging deeper into informational texts, children have the opportunity to tackle complex texts and strengthen their ability to support a position with reasons and evidence from texts. Reading about history is challenging as it happens in a time and a place the reader has never inhabited, and historical events are entangled with historical and social issues that may be unfamiliar. The goal of this unit is for students to emerge from the unit as knowledgeable readers who have learned how to build collective interpretations, know how to listen closely to each other as they read, and know how to carry ideas across time-both in their book club discussions and across more than one text. Throughout this unit, students study multiple points of view and they also learn strategies for using new domain-specific words.
Writing Workshop Units
- Unit 1: The Arc of Story: Writing Realistic Fiction
- Unit 2: Boxes and Bullets: Personal and Persuasive Essays
- Unit 3: Literary Essay - Writing About Fiction
- Unit 4: Bringing History to Life
Unit 1: The Arc of Story: Writing Realistic Fiction
In this first unit, students will learn ways to live like writers, understanding the writing process (plan, draft, revise, edit, publish) and seeing ideas for realistic fiction stories everywhere. They will collect story ideas and work to develop elements of an effective story. Students will focus on clarity and organization, balancing telling the reader and showing the reader what’s happening in a small moment story. They will learn ways to develop their main characters, delving deeper into developing three-dimensional characters and use story-arcs to develop scenes and settings in their stories. As students practice elaborating on the small moment stories they have written in the past, they will practice the integration of action, dialogue, inner thinking, and sound into a well developed story.
Unit 2: Boxes and Bullets: Personal and Persuasive Essays
This unit of study is designed to help children with the difficult and exhilarating work of learning to write well within an expository structure. Children will learn a variety of more sophisticated strategies for introducing topics, and learn to provide reasons to support their opinions, as well as facts and details to elaborate on their reasons. Children will explore different ways to arrange their reasons and evidence and learn to gather outside evidence to support more general topics they might be interested to write about. They will learn to write explicit thesis statements and topic sentences and then also explore ways to write towards more implied main ideas.
Unit 3: Literary Essay - Writing About Fiction
This unit invites students to read and study small packets of short stories that merit close study. This will be supported by reading short story mentor texts to help students write a well developed essay. It teaches students to grow ideas from texts by engaging in discussion and thinking deeply about issues. Students are immersed in texts with social issues, practice reading closely, and gathering entries about their thinking. Eventually, students reread those entries and choose a seed idea to develop and write a literary essay.
Unit 4: Bringing History to Life
In this unit, children will learn the foundations of research reports. They will dive deep into the project of writing about the past, and choose a focused topic to write their research about based on their work in the companion reading unit. Children will wrestle with citations, primary documents, conflicting views on a subject, and with the challenge of incorporating and synthesizing information of all sorts into logically structured chapters. Students will understand that information texts are often conglomerates, containing a lot of other kinds of texts and complete reports in which each chapter is written as a different genre.
Grade 5
Reading Workshop Unit
- Unit 1: Interpretation Book Clubs: Analyzing Themes
- Unit 2: Tackling Complexity (Moving Up Levels of Non Fiction)
- Unit 3: Fantasy Book Clubs: The Magic of Themes and Symbolism
- Unit 4: Argument and Advocacy: Researching Debatable Issues
Unit 1: Interpretation Book Clubs: Analyzing Themes
This first reading unit of study strives to teach students the best of what it means to read literature. One of the most important things that students will learn in this unit is to be in charge of their own learning, taking seriously the challenge to read thoughtfully and to write well about their reading. Students will learn that writing about their reading makes a reader more awake to the text. They will learn the work of interpretation, reading with an interpretive lens, lifting the level of their reading. Finally, students will learn to read analytically, noticing the way different authors develop the same theme differently.
Unit 2: Tackling Complexity (Moving Up Levels of Non Fiction)
In this unit students will study ways in which their texts are becoming more complex, and they will realize that the reading strategies they used to rely on are insufficient for these new challenges, hence, students will be introduced to ways that help them inquire how complex nonfiction gets hard and how they can develop some skills and strategies to tackle those difficulties. This unit also supports students in building independent nonfiction reading lives outside of school. The students will read and pursue what is of interest to them such as current events, sports, favorite teams, or singers, global warming, environmental issues etc...
Unit 3: Fantasy Book Clubs: The Magic of Themes and Symbolism
Fantasy novels teach students to be better readers. The exciting plots and young heroes draw students into series and entice students to keep reading. Fantasy novels teach readers to deal with complexity. These novels weave complexity through multi-faceted characters, multiple plotlines, shifting timelines, tricky narrative structures, and complicated symbolism. This unit explicitly aims to instill in children an eagerness to tackle more complex narratives, the tools to embrace complexity, and the sense of agency to do this work independently now and in the future.
Unit 4: Argument and Advocacy: Researching Debatable Issues
This unit supports students in reading more complex, challenging nonfiction. It is also a unit that aims to support fifth graders in becoming more active and critical citizens. It aims to help them learn to have an informed viewpoint and to communicate it clearly, as well as listen to others. Students will draw on all they have learned about how to read complex nonfiction in order to research and make arguments about provocative, debatable issues. This will entail reading arguments and also reading informational texts in a more critical and analytical way.
New Panel
Writing Workshop Units
- Unit 1: Narrative Craft
- Unit 2: The Lens of History - Research Reports
- Unit 3: Shaping Texts- From Essay and Narrative to Memoir
- Unit 4: Research - Based Argument Essay (Opinion)
Unit 1: Narrative Craft
The goal of this unit is to improve the quality of all of their writing. Students will strive toward independence and toward dramatic growth in the level of their writing. Because the skills required for narrative writing align with the skills for opinion and informational writing, students will develop skills not only needed for narrative writing, but also needed across all genres. Specific to narrative writing, they will learn to manage not only the story, but also the pacing of events; they will learn strategies to draw upon as they increase their independent writing skills. Students will learn to be clear about why they are telling a story so they make craft decisions with purposes in mind.
Unit 2: The Lens of History - Research Reports
Information writing is a remarkably wide and staggeringly broad genre. In this unit of study, students will learn to focus on a topic, organize it with logical structure, group ideas and information clearly and order the parts in compelling ways, include language and formatting that will help the reader transition and synthesize across parts of the text, and incorporate and explain technical terms related to the topic. These skills will serve children well whenever they want to compose an informational text.
Unit 3: Shaping Texts- From Essay and Narrative to Memoir
Grade 5 is a time of transition with students on the verge of becoming teenagers. At this age, with this unit of study, students are given the opportunity to work deeply with and closely together to help each other author memoirs. Students are given a chance to define themselves, to author life stories that they can take with them as they leave the safety of childhood and head out into the world. Students will have the opportunity to examine the text of their lives as they discern meaning, convey events and experiences precisely and logically, linking opinions and evidence. This genre brings together the art of memoir and the art of personal essay.
Unit 4: Research - Based Argument Essay (Opinion)
The freedom to argue is one of our most important freedoms. Argument is part and parcel of what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. In this unit, students will learn to argue with logic as well as passion (as well as listen to and read the arguments of others, testing them for their logic and credibility). They will develop the ability to weigh conflicting views and to decide thoughtfully on one’s own position, and to articulate that position in ways that are convincing to others. The goals for this unit require rigorous work, requiring students to structure their writing to include claims that are supported by reasons that are backed up by evidence.
Mathematics
Through a balanced mathematics program and authentic problem solving, students build conceptual understanding and develop computational fluency. Teachers facilitate inquiry and exploration to support students in making sense of concepts and developing independence as mathematical thinkers and communicators.
KG2
In Kindergarten, instructional time will focus on two critical areas: (1) representing and comparing whole numbers, initially with sets of objects; (2) describing shapes and space.
Grade K Overview
- Counting and Cardinality
- Operations and Algebraic Thinking
- Number and Operations in Base Ten
- Measurement and Data
- Geometry
- Mathematical Practices
Counting and Cardinality
Operations and Algebraic Thinking
Number and Operations in Base Ten
Measurement and Data
Geometry
Mathematical Practices
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Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
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Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
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Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
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Model with mathematics.
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Use appropriate tools strategically.
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Attend to precision.
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Look for and make use of structure.
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Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Grade 1
In Grade 1, instructional time will focus on four critical areas: (1) developing understanding of addition, subtraction, and strategies for addition and subtraction within 20; (2) developing understanding of whole number relationships and place value, including grouping in tens and ones; (3) developing understanding of linear measurement and measuring lengths as iterating length units; and (4) reasoning about attributes of, and composing and decomposing geometric shapes.
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Students develop strategies for adding and subtracting whole numbers based on their prior work with small numbers. They use a variety of models, including discrete objects and length-based models (e.g., cubes connected to form lengths), to model add-to, take-from, put-together, take-apart, and compare situations to develop meaning for the operations of addition and subtraction, and to develop strategies to solve arithmetic problems with these operations. Students understand connections between counting and addition and subtraction (e.g., adding two is the same as counting on two). They use properties of addition to add whole numbers and to create and use increasingly sophisticated strategies based on these properties (e.g., “making tens”) to solve addition and subtraction problems within 20. By comparing a variety of solution strategies, children build their understanding of the relationship between addition and subtraction.
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Students develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and generalizable methods to add within 100 and subtract multiples of 10. They compare whole numbers (at least to 100) to develop understanding of and solve problems involving their relative sizes. They think of whole numbers between 10 and 100 in terms of tens and ones (especially recognizing the numbers 11 to 19 as composed of a ten and some ones). Through activities that build number sense, they understand the order of the counting numbers and their relative magnitudes.
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Students develop an understanding of the meaning and processes of measurement, including underlying concepts such as iterating (the mental activity of building up the length of an object with equal-sized units) and the transitivity principle for indirect measurement.1
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Students compose and decompose plane or solid figures (e.g., put two triangles together to make a quadrilateral) and build understanding of part-whole relationships as well as the properties of the original and composite shapes. As they combine shapes, they recognize them from different perspectives and orientations, describe their geometric attributes, and determine how they are alike and different, to develop the background for measurement and for initial understandings of properties such as congruence and symmetry.
Grade 1 Overview
- Operations and Algebraic Thinking
- Number and Operations in Base Ten
- Measurement and Data
- Geometry
- Mathematical Practices
Operations and Algebraic Thinking
Number and Operations in Base Ten
Measurement and Data
Geometry
Mathematical Practices
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Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
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Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
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Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
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Model with mathematics.
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Use appropriate tools strategically.
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Attend to precision.
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Look for and make use of structure.
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Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Grade 2
In Grade 2, instructional time focuses on four critical areas: (1) extending understanding of base-ten notation; (2) building fluency with addition and subtraction; (3) using standard units of measure; and (4) describing and analyzing shapes.
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Students extend their understanding of the base-ten system. This includes ideas of counting in fives, tens, and multiples of hundreds, tens, and ones, as well as number relationships involving these units, including comparing. Students understand multi-digit numbers (up to 1000) written in base-ten notation, recognizing that the digits in each place represent amounts of thousands, hundreds, tens, or ones (e.g., 853 is 8 hundreds + 5 tens + 3 ones).
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Students use their understanding of addition to develop fluency with addition and subtraction within 100. They solve problems within 1000 by applying their understanding of models for addition and subtraction, and they develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and generalizable methods to compute sums and differences of whole numbers in base-ten notation, using their understanding of place value and the properties of operations. They select and accurately apply methods that are appropriate for the context and the numbers involved to mentally calculate sums and differences for numbers with only tens or only hundreds.
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Students recognize the need for standard units of measure (centimeter and inch) and they use rulers and other measurement tools with the understanding that linear measure involves an iteration of units. They recognize that the smaller the unit, the more iterations they need to cover a given length.
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Students describe and analyze shapes by examining their sides and angles. Students investigate, describe, and reason about decomposing and combining shapes to make other shapes. Through building, drawing, and analyzing two- and three-dimensional shapes, students develop a foundation for understanding area, volume, congruence, similarity, and symmetry in later grades.
Grade 2 Overview
- Operations and Algebraic Thinking
- Number and Operations in Base Ten
- Measurement and Data
- Geometry
- Mathematical Practices
Operations and Algebraic Thinking
Number and Operations in Base Ten
Measurement and Data
Geometry
Mathematical Practices
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Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
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Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
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Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
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Model with mathematics.
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Use appropriate tools strategically.
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Attend to precision.
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Look for and make use of structure.
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Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Grade 3
In Grade 3, instructional time focuses on four critical areas: (1) developing understanding of multiplication and division and strategies for multiplication and division within 100; (2) developing understanding of fractions, especially unit fractions (fractions with numerator 1); (3) developing understanding of the structure of rectangular arrays and of area; and (4) describing and analyzing two-dimensional shapes.
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Students develop an understanding of the meanings of multiplication and division of whole numbers through activities and problems involving equal-sized groups, arrays, and area models; multiplication is finding an unknown product, and division is finding an unknown factor in these situations. For equal-sized group situations, division can require finding the unknown number of groups or the unknown group size. Students use properties of operations to calculate products of whole numbers, using increasingly sophisticated strategies based on these properties to solve multiplication and division problems involving single-digit factors. By comparing a variety of solution strategies, students learn the relationship between multiplication and division.
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Students develop an understanding of fractions, beginning with unit fractions. Students view fractions in general as being built out of unit fractions, and they use fractions along with visual fraction models to represent parts of a whole. Students understand that the size of a fractional part is relative to the size of the whole. For example, 1/2 of the paint in a small bucket could be less paint than 1/3 of the paint in a larger bucket, but 1/3 of a ribbon is longer than 1/5 of the same ribbon because when the ribbon is divided into 3 equal parts, the parts are longer than when the ribbon is divided into 5 equal parts. Students are able to use fractions to represent numbers equal to, less than, and greater than one. They solve problems that involve comparing fractions by using visual fraction models and strategies based on noticing equal numerators or denominators.
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Students recognize area as an attribute of two-dimensional regions. They measure the area of a shape by finding the total number of same-size units of area required to cover the shape without gaps or overlaps, a square with sides of unit length being the standard unit for measuring area. Students understand that rectangular arrays can be decomposed into identical rows or into identical columns. By decomposing rectangles into rectangular arrays of squares, students connect area to multiplication, and justify using multiplication to determine the area of a rectangle.
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Students describe, analyze, and compare properties of two-dimensional shapes. They compare and classify shapes by their sides and angles, and connect these with definitions of shapes. Students also relate their fraction work to geometry by expressing the area of part of a shape as a unit fraction of the whole.
Grade 3 Overview
- Operations and Algebraic Thinking
- Number and Operations in Base Ten
- Number and Operations—Fractions
- Measurement and Data
- Geometry
- Mathematical Practices
Operations and Algebraic Thinking
Number and Operations in Base Ten
Number and Operations—Fractions
Measurement and Data
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Solve problems involving measurement and estimation of intervals of time, liquid volumes, and masses of objects.
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Represent and interpret data.
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Geometric measurement: understand concepts of area and relate area to multiplication and to addition.
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Geometric measurement: recognize perimeter as an attribute of plane figures and distinguish between linear and area measures.
Geometry
Mathematical Practices
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Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
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Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
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Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
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Model with mathematics.
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Use appropriate tools strategically.
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Attend to precision.
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Look for and make use of structure.
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Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Grade 4
In Grade 4, instructional time will focus on three critical areas: (1) developing understanding and fluency with multi-digit multiplication, and developing an understanding of dividing to find quotients involving multi-digit dividends; (2) developing an understanding of fraction equivalence, addition and subtraction of fractions with like denominators, and multiplication of fractions by whole numbers; (3) understanding that geometric figures can be analyzed and classified based on their properties, such as having parallel sides, perpendicular sides, particular angle measures, and symmetry.
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Students generalize their understanding of place value to 1,000,000, understanding the relative sizes of numbers in each place. They apply their understanding of models for multiplication (equal-sized groups, arrays, area models), place value, and properties of operations, in particular the distributive property, as they develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and generalizable methods to compute products of multi-digit whole numbers. Depending on the numbers and the context, they select and accurately apply appropriate methods to estimate or mentally calculate products. They develop fluency with efficient procedures for multiplying whole numbers; understand and explain why the procedures work based on place value and properties of operations; and use them to solve problems. Students apply their understanding of models for division, place value, properties of operations, and the relationship of division to multiplication as they develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and generalizable procedures to find quotients involving multi-digit dividends. They select and accurately apply appropriate methods to estimate and mentally calculate quotients, and interpret remainders based upon the context.
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Students develop understanding of fraction equivalence and operations with fractions. They recognize that two different fractions can be equal (e.g., 15/9 = 5/3), and they develop methods for generating and recognizing equivalent fractions. Students extend previous understandings about how fractions are built from unit fractions, composing fractions from unit fractions, decomposing fractions into unit fractions, and using the meaning of fractions and the meaning of multiplication to multiply a fraction by a whole number.
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Students describe, analyze, compare, and classify two-dimensional shapes. Through building, drawing, and analyzing two-dimensional shapes, students deepen their understanding of properties of two-dimensional objects and the use of them to solve problems involving symmetry.
Grade 4 Overview
- Operations and Algebraic Thinking
- Number and Operations in Base Ten
- Number and Operations—Fractions
- Measurement and Data
- Geometry
- Mathematical Practices
Operations and Algebraic Thinking
Number and Operations in Base Ten
Number and Operations—Fractions
Measurement and Data
Geometry
Mathematical Practices
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Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
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Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
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Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
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Model with mathematics.
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Use appropriate tools strategically.
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Attend to precision.
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Look for and make use of structure.
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Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Grade 5
In Grade 5, instructional time will focus on three critical areas: (1) developing fluency with addition and subtraction of fractions, and developing understanding of the multiplication of fractions and of division of fractions in limited cases (unit fractions divided by whole numbers and whole numbers divided by unit fractions); (2) extending division to 2-digit divisors, integrating decimal fractions into the place value system and developing understanding of operations with decimals to hundredths, and developing fluency with whole number and decimal operations; and (3) developing understanding of volume.
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Students apply their understanding of fractions and fraction models to represent the addition and subtraction of fractions with unlike denominators as equivalent calculations with like denominators. They develop fluency in calculating sums and differences of fractions, and make reasonable estimates of them. Students also use the meaning of fractions, of multiplication and division, and the relationship between multiplication and division to understand and explain why the procedures for multiplying and dividing fractions make sense. (Note: this is limited to the case of dividing unit fractions by whole numbers and whole numbers by unit fractions.)
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Students develop understanding of why division procedures work based on the meaning of base-ten numerals and properties of operations. They finalize fluency with multi-digit addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They apply their understandings of models for decimals, decimal notation, and properties of operations to add and subtract decimals to hundredths. They develop fluency in these computations, and make reasonable estimates of their results. Students use the relationship between decimals and fractions, as well as the relationship between finite decimals and whole numbers (i.e., a finite decimal multiplied by an appropriate power of 10 is a whole number), to understand and explain why the procedures for multiplying and dividing finite decimals make sense. They compute products and quotients of decimals to hundredths efficiently and accurately.
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Students recognize volume as an attribute of three-dimensional space. They understand that volume can be measured by finding the total number of same-size units of volume required to fill the space without gaps or overlaps. They understand that a 1-unit by 1-unit by 1-unit cube is the standard unit for measuring volume. They select appropriate units, strategies, and tools for solving problems that involve estimating and measuring volume. They decompose three-dimensional shapes and find volumes of right rectangular prisms by viewing them as decomposed into layers of arrays of cubes. They measure necessary attributes of shapes in order to determine volumes to solve real world and mathematical problems.
Grade 5 Overview
- Operations and Algebraic Thinking
- Number and Operations in Base Ten
- Number and Operations—Fractions
- Measurement and Data
- Geometry
- Mathematical Practices
Operations and Algebraic Thinking
Number and Operations in Base Ten
Number and Operations—Fractions
Measurement and Data
Geometry
Mathematical Practices
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Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
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Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
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Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
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Model with mathematics.
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Use appropriate tools strategically.
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Attend to precision.
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Look for and make use of structure.
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Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning
Inquiry
Inquiry units are designed to offer students authentic experiences where they generate questions and tackle complex issues, as individuals and teams. Social Studies based units are aligned to the American Education Reaches Out (AERO) standards, and they build understanding of concepts across the domains of the discipline - civics, economics, geography, and history.
In all units, active questioning drives learning and concepts help us to organize our ideas. Through concept-based inquiry, students develop transferable understanding around core ideas and practice the skills of the disciplines, including:
AERO Social Studies Practices
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Develop Questions and Plan Inquiries
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Evaluate the Credibility of the Sources and Relevance of the Information to the Inquiry
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Construct Coherent, Reasoned Arguments and Explanations
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Communicate Conclusions From an Inquiry
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Take Informed Action for the Common Good
NGSS Science and Engineering Practices
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Asking Questions and Defining Problems
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Developing and Using Models
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Planning and Carrying out Investigations
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Analyzing and Interpreting Data
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Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
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Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
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Engaging in Argument from Evidence
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Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information
KG2
In KG2 Inquiry, students investigate concepts of causation, change, belonging, and nature. Students develop understanding of impact, how forces affect motion and how plants and animals can change their environment. Through an exploration of family and friends and the journey that food takes before it reaches our tables, they discover different perspectives and begin to understand personal responsibility. Finally, students examine change as they compare and contrast objects and technology from the past to what we have available to us today.
Grade 1
In Grade 1 Inquiry, students explore how light and sound can help us to communicate. They observe the plant and animal world closely and think about how the characteristics that they notice can be used to solve problems. Students will also practice their close observation skills to discuss and analyze patterns in the sky, and how they change throughout the year. In the classroom, students inquire into the concept of community and their role within a community. They develop an understanding of how the products they use every day connect to their community and to distant places, and they continue to dig into the concepts of perspective and resources in a study of homes from around the world.
Grade 2
In Grade 2 Inquiry, students expand their understanding of responsibility in communities beyond the classroom. They consider roles and responsibilities of different members of a community, as well as the goods and services that are needed in our local communities. At the same time, in Science inquiry, students are exploring interdependent relationships in the natural world. Through these experiences, students begin to understand how we are all connected. Digging into the concept of culture through an inquiry into different traditions and celebrations, students also begin to understand similarities and differences among us, and finally how we can have a positive impact in our communities. Students will also investigate slow and fast natural processes that shape our Earth, and the properties of different materials.
Grade 3
Grade 3 Inquiry units are designed to offer students authentic experiences where they generate questions and tackle complex issues, as individuals and teams. Social Studies based units are aligned to the American Education Reaches Out (AERO) standards, and they address concepts of citizenship, leadership, and governance. Throughout the year, students will research and discuss the role of citizens in a community, different government systems, and how they can make a positive impact in their communities.
Science phenomenon-based units are aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards, and they are taught by the Elementary School Science Coach. In Grade 3, students engage in a study of movement and the interaction of objects, as well as deep exploration into inheritance and variation of traits in organisms.
In all units, students develop conceptual understanding around core ideas and practice the skills of the disciplines, including:
Grade 4
In Grade 4 Inquiry, students dig deeply into the concept of perspective. They consider the impact of geography, and how the characteristics of a place influence culture and identity. Students will further investigate how circumstances can influence an individual’s perceptions and reactions to the world. From a scientific perspective, students will observe processes that shape the Earth and generate solutions for reducing the impact of Earth’s natural processes on humans. Finally, students will examine conflict, inquiring into why people in different times and places view the world differently. Through scientific inquiry, students will apply knowledge and understanding to develop models and construct explanations regarding the transfer of energy and the impact of waves.
Grade 5
In Grade 5 Inquiry, students will begin with a study of adaptability as they investigate the factors that influence locations of human populations and human migration. They will continue to dig deeper into geography and economics, in an exploration of different trade markets as they consider whether global trade is helpful or hurtful to societies. Students will also investigate activists, from the past and in the present day, to begin to understand how one person’s passion, ideas, advocacy, and actions can change the law, people’s perspectives and impact society and even the world. Through scientific inquiry, students will dive deeply into the concept of systems, observing and analyzing systems in space, the atmosphere, and in ecosystems we observe in the environments around us.