Animal Unit

The Animal Unit

The Animal Unit is a comprehensive, 151-page teaching resource that not only informs and engages students but also enhances their reading comprehension skills. It combines a variety of teaching tools to provide an in-depth study on animals with a strong emphasis on vertebrates – mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles.

Included in this package:

• Original close reading non-fiction passages aimed at familiarizing students with concepts such as animal classification and characteristics, animal biomes and habitats, and animal life cycles.
• Vibrant picture cards featuring both vertebrate and invertebrate creatures which can be used effectively for sorting games or categorizing exercises.

Focused Learning Principles

This pack has been thoughtfully designed to stimulate deep thinking amongst students. It emphasizes Depth of Knowledge (D.O.K) principles across all its components. Coupled with each passage are text-dependent questions that form an effective summative assessment. Vocabulary cards linked to each text contribute towards the enrichment of student's language repository.

Educational Aids Included:

1. KWL charts for understanding prior knowledge levels of students about animals;
2. Venn Diagrams for comparison purposes;
3. Tree Map Graphic Organizer incorporated into the unit for grammar analysis activities based on words used in the passages;
4. Cognitive content dictionaries that act as vocabulary books providing student-friendly definitions.

The versatility offered by The Animal Unit allows educators to choose components according to their teaching objectives or classroom needs thereby accommodating diverse learning settings - whole-group instructions strategies or small group activities or even homework assignments.
Conclusively,"The Animal Unit" is an intriguing learning journey where discoveries about our natural world will be made at every stage while reinforcing necessary cognitive skills in students from Grade 2 through Grade 4.

This unit contains the following elements:

• CLOSE reading nonfiction passages with illustrations:

1. Passage One- Animal Classification

2. Passage Two- Animal Classes and Characteristics

3. Passage Three-Animal Biomes and Habitats

4. Passage Four-Animal Life Cycles

• Vocabulary cards with definitions for each CLOSE reading passage

• CLOSE Reading Instructions PowerPoint ( or handout) explaining the steps of CLOSE Reading

• Animal Picture Card Activity (we created two sets of cards with 48 pictures of animals; both vertebrates and invertebrates. We created one set with clipart animals and one set with photos. Every teacher has a different preference, so we created both.) These sets of cards are versatile and can be used for a wide variety of uses; we have suggested a few in the instructions.

• Anchor Charts for student annotation and Discussion Topics for CLOSE Reading

• “Text Dependent Questions”, to be used after all passages are read; this is intended as a summative assessment, or practice in citing textual evidence and giving examples from the reading of nonfiction text

• Common Core Essential questions (to be used after all passages are read, can be used as a summative assessment or a performance task)

• RAFT ideas (explanation included if you’re not familiar with RAFTS)

• Cognitive Content Dictionary (to be made into a “book” for student vocabulary words, definitions, and pictures

• KWL Chart ( you can use this at the beginning of the unit to ascertain what they may already know about animals)

• Venn Diagram to compare and contrast similarities and differences.

• A Tree Map Graphic Organizer ( a grammar component for students to analyze the words in the passages and their parts of speech)

• A CLOZE worksheet (a fill-in the blank) worksheet and answer sheet to accompany each passage to assess vocabulary attainment and your students’ ability to utilize context clues.