Dinosaur Unit

Product Title: Dinosaur Unit

This expansive 127-page Dinosaur Unit is carefully designed to spark intrigue and facilitate comprehensive learning among students, in a fun and engaging way. Primarily targeting 3rd, 4th, and 5th-grade educators teaching Science within the sub subject of Earth Sciences, this resource will prove abundantly beneficial for both public school teachers as well as homeschoolers.

The central element of this teaching resource consists of six detailed CLOSE Reading nonfiction passages about dinosaurs. From exploring questions like What is a dinosaur? to diving into their anatomy, physical characteristics, habitats and diets; each passage provides an opportunity for deepened understanding and excited discussions amongst your students.

• Accompanying the passages are text-dependent questions that align seamlessly with each content segment - offering measures for summative assessments or practice in citing textual evidence.
• Vocabulary cards with definitions will help bolster student’s understanding of the subject matter discussed in every passage.

The versatility of this unit allows it to be used wholeworks or allows educators to selectively pick components that best suit their individual student's needs. Explicit instructions along with anchor charts have been given within the unit facilitating straightforward implementation regardless if Close Reading methodologies are new or familiar territories.

This bundle further carries other interactive features including:

1. Graphic organizers such as a Venn Diagram enabling sharing similarities/differences among dinosaurs - which can be done either individually during homework assignments or as part of group exercises..
2. A tree map helps grammatical analysis
3. RAFT ideas add creativity into assignments tasking students differently based on their Roles (R), Audiences (A), Formats (F) and Topics(T).
4. A Cognitive Content Dictionary offers pictorial aids enhancing ease of comprehension providing chances for self-assessment through the provisioned CLOZE worksheets.

Endeavor to discover pre-existing knowledge your pupils have about dinosaurs utilizing our KWL Charts at inception stages thereby tailoring teaching accordingly. With proper use alongside any other books, videos, or websites educators habitually use in teaching; this Dinosaur Unit optimally enriches and realizes a thorough learning experience about our prehistoric friends.

This unit contains the following elements:

• CLOSE reading nonfiction passages with illustrations:

o Passage number one is “What is a Dinosaur?”

o Passage number two is “Anatomy and Physical Characteristics”

o Passage number three is “The Age of Dinosaurs”

o Passage number four is “Dinosaur Diet and Habitats”

o Passage number five is “Types of Dinosaurs”

o Passage number six is “Dinosaur Extinction”

• Vocabulary cards with definitions for each CLOSE reading passage with pictures

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

• 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 the dinosaurs)

• 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.