Unit 1: Addition & Subtraction Patterns

Learning Targets

• Students solve one-step subtraction problems within 100
• Students fluently add and subtract to 20 using mental strategies
• Students solve addition story problems with sums to 100 involving lengths given in the same units
• Students use strategies based on place value and the relationship between addition and subtraction to fluently add and subtract within 1,000

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Family Resources

• Family Unit 1 Overview English

• Family Unit 1 Overview Spanish

 

Unit 2: Introduction to Multiplication

Learning Targets

• Students solve multiplication story problems with products to 100 involving equal groups and arrays
• Students multiply using the commutative property
• Students fluently multiply with products to 100 using strategies
• Students identify patterns in basic multiplication facts and in the multiplication table

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Family Resources

• Family Unit 2 Overview - English
• Family Unit 2 Overview - Spanish

Unit 3: Multi-Digit Addition & Subtraction

Learning Targets

• Students solve two-step story problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
• Students write equations with a letter standing for the unknown quantity
• Students round whole numbers to the nearest ten or the nearest hundred
• Students estimate sums and differences to approximate solutions to problems

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Family Resources

• Family Unit 3 Overview - English
• Family Unit 3 Overview - Spanish

Unit 4: Measurement & Fractions

Learning Targets

• Students solve two-step story problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
• Students demonstrate understanding of a unit fraction 1/b 
• Students write a whole number as a fraction and recognize fractions that are equivalent to whole numbers
• Student locate and place fractions on a number line
• Students identify equivalent fractions by comparing their sizes or their locations on a number line
• Students tell and write time to the nearest minute
• Students estimate and measure liquid volume and mass in metric units

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Family Resources

• Family Unit 4 Overview English
• Family Unit 4 Overview Spanish

Unit 5: Multiplication, Division, & Area

Learning Targets

• Students write story problems to describe situations to match a multiplication or division equation
• Students solve for the unknown in a multiplication or division equation involving 3 whole numbers  
• Students fluently multiply and divide within 100
• Students solve two-step story problems using multiplication and division
• Students demonstrate an understanding that unit squares are used to measure the areas of plane figures
• Students find the area of rectangles by multiplying the side lengths

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Family Resources

• Family Unit 5 Overview English

• Family Unit 5 Overview Spanish

Unit 6: Geometry

Learning Targets

• Students find the perimeter of a polygon, given its side lengths
• Students create rectangles with the same perimeter but different areas and solve related story problems
• Students identify rhombuses, rectangles, and squares as quadrilaterals
• Students group shapes in different categories according to shared attributes
• Students partition shapes into equal areas and express the area of each part of a whole as a unit fraction of the whole

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Family Resources

• Family Unit 6 Overview English

• Family Unit 6 Overview Spanish

Unit 7: Extending Multiplication & Fractions

Learning Targets

• Students multiply using the commutative, associative, and distributive properties
• Students solve two-step story problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
• Students assess the reasonableness of answers to story problems using mental computation, rounding, and other estimation strategies
• Students multiply whole numbers by multiples of 10 from 10 to 90
• Students locate fractions on a number line and identify equivalent fractions
• Students use the area model for multiplication to illustrate the distributive property
• Students express the area of each equal part of a whole as a unit fraction of the whole

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Family Resources

• Family Unit 7 Overview English

• Family Unit 7 Overview Spanish

Unit 8: Bridge Design & Construction: Data Collection & Analysis

Learning Targets

• Students compare two fractions with the same numerator or denominator
• Students measure time intervals in minutes and solve story problems involving minutes
• Students generate measurement data by measuring lengths to the nearest half or fourth of an inch
• Students find the area of a rectangle by multiplying the side lengths
• Students identify and draw quadrilaterals as well as group shapes with shared attributes 

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Family Resources

• Family Unit 8 Overview English

• Family Unit 8 Overview Spanish

Unit 1: The Classroom Community

Topic and Learning Targets

• Comprehension

  • Students will learn about genre

  • Students discuss their reading lives and share with the class what they like to read

  • Students use the reading strategies of questioning, making connections, and visualizing

  • Students explore themes in fiction and narrative nonfiction

  • Students explore nonfiction text features

• Independent Practice

  • Students learn about Individualized Daily Reading (IDR)

  • Students learn a procedure for selecting appropriate books

  • Students practice choosing books on their own

  • Students learn a procedure for self-monitoring and practice it as they read

  • Students learn and use “fix-up” strategies

  • Students learn about the purpose of reading conferences

  • Students write about their ideas in their reading journals

  • Students notice what they are thinking about as they read

• Word Study

  • Students learn about and spell words with the inflectional endings -s, -es, -ing, and -ed

  • Students learn about and spell words with the common syllable types -le and final e

  • Students read and sort polysyllabic words

  • Students learn about open and closed syllables

  • Students sort words by spelling strategies, sound, inflectional endings, and base word

  • Students learn and use online dictionaries • Build a word collection

• Social Skill Development

  • Students listen respectfully

  • Students share ideas

  • Students build and reflect on the classroom community

  • Students learn and practice classroom procedures

  • Students take responsibility for their learning and behavior

  • Students handle materials responsibly and share them fairly

  • Students ask clarifying questions and confirm each other’s thinking

  • Students share their partners’ thinking with the class

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Texts

• Paper Son: The Inspiring Story of Tyrus Wong, Immigrant and Artist 

• The World Is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid

• When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop

• Bloom: A Story of Fashion Designer Elsa Schiaparelli

• “Ayodele Casel: Infinite Music

Unit 2: Strategy Development & Generating Independent Thinking

Topic and Learning Targets

• Comprehension

  • Students use the thinking tools “Stop and Ask Questions” and double entry journals 

  • Students use reading strategies, including making inferences, making connections, questioning, visualizing, determining importance, summarizing, and synthesizing

  • Students learn about and discuss the story elements of character, setting, plot, theme, and challenges

  • Students identify important events and use these to identify main ideas in the text

  • Students make and confirm predictions

  • Students discuss the organization of nonfiction: description and compare/contrast

  • Students use text features

  • Students write a shared summary of a text

  • Students consider what they think about the topics and how their thinking might have changed

• Independent Practice
  • Students self-monitor and use “fix-up” strategies
  • Students complete a reading self-assessment and establish reading goals
  • Students generate independent thinking
  • Students write a reading journal entry
• Word Study

  • Students discuss, read, analyze, and spell polysyllabic words

  • Students learn about the r-controlled and vowel team syllable types 

  • Students discuss the prefixes re- and un- 

  • Students discuss the suffixes -ful, -less, -ly, -ion, -tion, -sion, and -ation 

  • Students use affixes for clues about meaning 

  • Students use context to determine meaning 

  • Students discuss the literal and nonliteral meaning of figurative language 

  • Students learn syllabication strategies 

  • Students explore the meaning of adjectives and their connections to real life 

  • Students learn about and practice a word-analysis process to support their decoding of polysyllabic words 

  • Students learn about morphemic transformations 

  • Students learn about the schwa 

  • Students discuss the ways that adding prefixes and suffixes make related words 

  • Students create word webs

  • Students review word collections

• Social Skill Development
  • Students listen carefully and actively
  • Students use discussion prompts to build on one another’s thinking and extend conversations 
  • Students share their partners’ thinking with the class 
  • Students take responsibility for their learning and behavior 
  • Students agree and disagree with one another in a caring and respectful way
  • Students ask clarifying questions
  • Students confirm they understand each other’s thinking
  • Students give reasons to support their thinking 
  • Students reach agreement with their partners before making decisions

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Texts

• The Three Ninja Pigs

• Ninja Red Riding Hood • Birdsong 

• “Mommy Who Walks on the Sea” 

• “Treat” 

• Mountain Chef: How One Man Lost His Groceries, Changed His Plans, and Helped Cook Up the National Park Service 

• “Protecting Our Land: The Journey of the National Park Service”

• Parks for All: US National Parks 

• “Ations”

Unit 3: Fiction

Topic and Learning Targets

• Comprehension

  • Students learn about the characteristics of fiction, including story structure 

  • Students use reading strategies, such as questioning, making inferences, making connections, visualizing, synthesizing, and summarizing

  • Students discuss story elements including character, setting, plot, themes and narrator 

  • Students identify important events 

  • Students use “Stop and Jot” 

  • Students participate in close reading

  • Students write a summary of a novel 

  • Students build fluency

• Independent Practice
  • Students self-monitor and use “fix-up” strategies 
  • Students think about story elements, including setting, character, plot, and theme 
  • Students use reading strategies, including making connections and summarizing 
  • Students generate independent thinking
• Word Study

  • Students discuss, read, analyze, and spell polysyllabic words 

  • Students learn about comparative and superlative suffixes (-er and -est) and multiple meanings of the suffix -er 

  • Students learn how to determine the meaning of words with multiple meaning suffixes 

  • Students learn about the prefixes un-, in-, im-, il-, mis-, pre, and fore- 

  • Students learn about the suffixes -or and -ist 

  • Students discuss shades of meaning 

  • Students discuss antonyms 

  • Students create word webs with words that have opposite meanings 

  • Students learn about word families 

  • Students explore figurative language and personification 

  • Students review word collection

• Social Skill Development

  • Students take responsibility for their learning and behavior 

  • Students use clarifying questions

  • Students listen carefully and respectfully 

  • Students confirm one another’s thinking 

  • Students share their partners’ thinking with the class 

  • Students give feedback in a helpful way 

  • Students agree and disagree in a caring way 

  • Students use discussion prompts to build on one another’s thinking and extend conversations 

  • Students share partner time 

  • Students support one another’s independent work 

  • Students contribute ideas that are different from other people’s ideas 

  • Students reflect on their partnerships

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Texts

• A Boy Called Bat 

• “Ode to My Shoes” 

• “Good Morning”

Unit 4: Narrative Nonfiction

Topic and Learning Targets

• Comprehension

  • Students learn about the characteristics of narrative nonfiction 

  • Students build knowledge by reading and discussing biographies about people who make a difference through artistic expression 

  • Students use reading strategies, such as making inferences, making connections, questioning, and synthesizing 

  • Students discuss elements of biographies, including setting, important events, and theme 

  • Students learn about the structure of biographies 

  • Students discuss the organization of nonfiction: sequence 

  • Students use “Written Conversations” 

  • Students participate in close reading 

  • Students write an outline for a biography 

  • Students build fluency

• Independent Practice

  • Students self-monitor and use “fix-up” strategies 

  • Students determine important events and identify themes 

  • Students use reading strategies, including making connections, making inferences, and summarizing 

  • Students generate independent thinking

• Word Study

  • Students discuss, read, analyze, and spell polysyllabic words 

  • Students build vocabulary related to the theme of artistic expression 

  • Students learn about the prefixes in- and im- 

  • Students make a word web with a base word connected to the Reading strand theme of artistic expression 

  • Students learn about the prefix en- 

  • Students learn about the suffixes -ian and -eer 

  • Students use word-part clues and context to determine the meaning of antonym pairs 

  • Students review word collections

• Social Skill Development

  • Students learn and practice the procedure for “Heads Together” 

  • Students include everyone in and contribute to group work 

  • Students take responsibility for their learning and behavior 

  • Students contribute ideas that are different from their classmates’ ideas 

  • Students support one another’s independent work 

  • Students analyze the effects of their own behavior on group work 

  • Students reflect on their partnerships 

  • Students build on one another’s thinking 

  • Students listen carefully

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Texts

• Paper Son: The Inspiring Story of Tyrus Wong, Immigrant and Artist 

• The World Is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid 

• When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop 

• Bloom: A Story of Fashion Designer Elsa Schiaparelli 

• “Ayodele Casel: Infinite Music

   

Unit 5: Expository Nonfiction

Topic and Learning Targets

• Comprehension

  • Students learn about the characteristics of expository nonfiction 

  • Students build knowledge by reading and discussing texts about migration 

  • Students use reading strategies, such as determining importance, synthesizing, and summarizing 

  • Students discuss ways authors organize information in nonfiction text, including sequence and cause/effect 

  • Students use text features 

  • Students participate in close reading 

  • Students discuss digital reading 

  • Students review how to find and evaluate credible online sources 

  • Students synthesize and write about what they learned about animal migration 

  • Students build fluency

• Independent Practice
  • Students self-monitor and use “fix-up” strategies 
  • Students determine important ideas 
  • Students use reading strategies, including determining importance and summarizing 
  • Students generate independent thinking
• Word Study
  • Students discuss, read, analyze, and spell polysyllabic words 
  • Students build vocabulary related to the theme of migration
  • Students learn about the suffixes -able, -ible, -y, -ous, -ness, and -ment
  • Students think about how adjectives with the suffixes -ness and -ment can be used 
  • Students notice and discuss spelling changes that take place when the suffix -ness is added to base words that end with the letter y 
  • Students create word webs with a base word connected to the Reading strand theme of migration 
  • Students review prefixes and suffixes in the context of analyzing and sorting polysyllabic words 
  • Students discuss figurative language 
  • Students review word collections
• Social Skill Development

  • Students listen respectfully and actively 

  • Students take responsibility for their learning and behavior 

  • Students include everyone in and contribute to the group work 

  • Students give reasons to support their thinking 

  • Students reach agreement before making decisions 

  • Students support one another’s independent work 

  • Students share their ideas with one another 

  • Students give feedback in a helpful way 

  • Students respectfully discuss and solve problems 

  • Students share their partners’ thinking with the class 

  • Students ask clarifying questions

  • Students confirm one another’s thinking 

  • Students reflect on the classroom community and partnerships 

  • Students handle materials responsibly and share them fairly 

  • Students build on one another’s thinking

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Texts

• Migration 

• Epic Migrations by Land 

• Epic Migrations by Water 

• “The Gray Whale: Past, Present, and Future” 

• Epic Migrations by Air 

• “Swan Migration”

Unit 6: Persuasive Nonfiction

Topic and Learning Targets

• Comprehension

  • Students learn about the characteristics of persuasive nonfiction 

  • Students use reading strategies, including questioning and determining importance 

  • Students discuss audience and purpose 

  • Students identify and discuss author’s opinions and the reasons and evidence to support their opinions

  • Students discuss aspects of author’s craft that make texts persuasive 

  • Students discuss the organization of nonfiction: compare/contrast and cause/effect 

  • Students distinguish between facts and opinions 

  • Students participate in close reading 

  • Students discuss how an image conveys information and a message 

  • Students use “Written Conversations” 

  • Students share and discuss their own opinions about topics 

  • Students write a persuasive book recommendation 

  • Students build fluency

• Independent Practice

  • Students self-monitor and use “fix-up” strategies 

  • Students think about author’s purpose, audience, fact, and opinion

  • Students use reading strategies, including determining importance and summarizing 

  • Students generate independent thinking

• Word Study

  • Students discuss, read, analyze, and spell polysyllabic words 

  • Students learn about the prefixes over-, under- and the “number” prefixes family (e.g., uni-, bi-, and tri-) 

  • Students explore adjectives that convey feeling and shades of meaning 

  • Students review and use words from their word collections in poems 

  • Students review the schwa 

  • Students notice and discuss pronunciation changes that take place when suffixes are added to certain base words 

  • Students review word collections

• Social Skill Development
  • Students share their true opinions
  • Students listen and discuss opinions respectfully
  • Students share their partners’ thinking with the class
  • Students include everyone in and contribute to group work
  • Students build on one another’s thinking
  • Students support one another’s independent work
  • Students give feedback in a helpful way
  • Students use “Heads Together”

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Texts

• Should Cars Be Banned in Cities?” 

• “Extra Recess? Yes, Please!” 

• “No Time for Extra Recess!” 

• “Concerns About Cursive” 

• “Bring Cursive Back to Schools” 

• “Keep Chocolate Milk on the Menu” 

• “Chocolate Milk at School? Thumbs Down!” 

• Top 10 Reasons for Recess

Unit 7: Drama

Topic and Learning Targets

• Comprehension

  • Students listen to and discuss a play 

  • Students use reading strategies, including making inferences, questioning, determining importance, and visualizing 

  • Students discuss the play’s story arc and story elements, including character, setting, challenge or problem, and theme 

  • Students participate in a close reading 

  • Students review and practice fluency skills they have learned, including reading with attention to punctuation, emphasizing certain words, and phrasing 

  • Students perform dramatic readings of a play 

  • Students work in groups to write and discuss facts and opinions about the genres 

  • Students reflect on the reading community

• Independent Practice
  • Students self-monitor and use “fix-up” strategies 
  • Students think about story elements, including character, setting, plot, and theme 
  • Students use reading strategies 
  • Students generate independent thinking
• Word Study

  • Students discuss, read, analyze, and spell polysyllabic words

  • Students learn about the Greek roots tele, graph, photo, and scrib/script 

  • Students create word webs with words that share a root 

  • Students write their own found poems 

  • Students analyze and sort polysyllabic words 

  • Students reflect on and review what they have learned this year in Word Study 

  • Students review word collections

• Social Skill Development
  • Students take responsibility for their learning and behavior
  • Students listen respectfully and actively
  • Students share their ideas and explain their thinking 
  • Students contribute ideas that are different from other people’s ideas
  • Students reach agreement before making decisions
  • Students give feedback in a helpful way
  • Students express interest in and appreciation for their classmates’ performances 
  • Students solve problems respectfully 
  • Students agree and disagree in a caring way 
  • Students work responsibly in pairs 
  • Students reflect on partnerships 
  • Students discuss their growth as members of the classroom community

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Texts

•  Possum’s Tale

Life Science: Fossils & Changing Environments Unit (Animals through Time)

Learning Targets

• Students explore the idea that the rock under our feet sometimes contains fossils, and investigate how these fossils reveal changes in habitats through time
• Students learn how we can infer what the outside of an animal looked like by using clues about their skeleton
• Students learn how fossilized animal tracks can tell us a great deal about the animals that left them

Life Science: Life Cycles Unit (Circle of Life)

Learning Targets

• Students create models of several different animal life cycles and compare them to one another. They use these models to discover the pattern that all animals are born, grow, can have babies, and eventually die
• Students obtain and evaluate information about mosquitoes from different sources. They analyze and interpret information about the mosquito life cycle to reduce the number of mosquitoes that live in a certain area
• Students model the structure and function of flower parts that are responsible for creating seeds
• Students explore the function of fruits in plants and practice classification
• Students play a game that models the stages of the plant life cycle. After playing the game students use the model to show how changes to one part of the life cycle affect all other stages

Life Science: Heredity, Survival, & Selection Unit (Fates of Traits)

Learning Targets

• Students investigate how human beings have modified plants based on our knowledge of how plants change from generation to generation
• Students analyze the traits of parent dogs and their offspring, constructing an explanation about which traits a puppy gets from each parent
• Students compare the structures of lizards that live on an island. They simulate multiple generations of these lizards, and analyze and interpret the data to understand how these structures aid in their survival
• Students observe animals that live in groups in order to obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about animal social behavior. Students use evidence to show how animals form groups to help them survive
• Students measure and compare their own physical traits (arm strength, balance, and height) and analyze the information to construct an explanation for how the environment can influence traits

Earth & Space Science: Weather & Climate Unit (Stormy Skies)

Learning Targets

• Students obtain and combine information that water can change from liquid to gas, but that it is always made of tiny drops. Clouds are made of water that has evaporated
• Students make observations of clouds and develop a tool to make predictions about what kind of weather might happen next
• Students gather winter temperature data from three different towns. They represent the data in a table to compare the weather and decide which town is the best candidate to host a snow fort festival in future years
• Students obtain and combine information to describe the different climate regions of the world
• Students design and build solutions that reduce the hazards associated with strong winds that could damage buildings

Physical Science: Forces, Motion, & Magnets (Invisible Forces)

Learning Targets

• Students develop a mental model of the nature of forces and motion and use that model to explain the behavior of an elastic jumper
• Students develop and design a bridge to be as strong as possible while working with limited materials
• Students make observations and measurements of a trapeze model. Then, using that information they predict the motion of a real trapeze
• Students investigate the properties of magnets and the fact that they exert forces that act at a distance
• Students investigate magnetic attraction and repulsion, and design a magnetic lock in the hands-on activity

Unit 1: The Writing Community

Learning Targets

• Students get ideas for writing from read-alouds
• Students are part of a caring writing community
• Students draft many pieces in a variety of genres

 

Unit 2: The Writing Process

Learning Targets

• Students select drafts to develop and publish
• Students revise drafts
• Students proofread for spelling and conventions
• Students write final versions and publish

 

Unit 3: Personal Narrative

Learning Targets

• Students write about single, interesting events or topics from students' own lives
• Students use sensory details and transition words
• Students explore strong opening sentences and endings that draw a story's events to a close

Unit 4: Fiction

Learning Targets

• Students develop characters using physical descriptions, actions, thoughts, and speech
• Students use interesting verbs and adverbs
• Students write endings that bring a story's event to a close

 

One-Week Narrative Writing Unit

 

Unit 5: Expository Nonfiction (Informative Writing)

Learning Targets

• Students collaborate with a partner to research and write a report about an animal
• Students explore expository text features to include in reports (e.g., illustrations, captions, tables of contents)
• Students take research notes and organize them by topic

 

One Week Informative/Explanatory Writing Unit

Unit 6: Functional Writing (Explanatory Writing)

Learning Targets

• Students write directions for how to do various activities
• Students explore audience, purpose, sequence, accuracy, completeness, and clarity in directions

 

Unit 7: Opinion Writing

Learning Targets

• Students identify audience and purpose for opinion writing
• Students write clear statements of opinion supported by reasons
• Students explore clear, direct openings openings and conclusions that restate the opinion

 

One Week Opinion Writing Unit

 

Unit 8: Poetry

Learning Targets

• Students explore imagery, sound, and form poetry
• Students tab into creativity

 

Unit 9: Revisiting the Writing Community

Learning Targets

• Students reflect on growth as writers and as community members
• Students plan summer writing