Category: Science

Lesson Summary

Raised by Mother Duck after his egg accidentally rolls into her nest, Guji Guji grows up thinking he’s a duck. One day he encounters three crocodiles who point out all the body parts that make him a crocodile. The crocodiles argue that as a fellow crocodile, Guji Guji should help them catch and eat his own family. Guji Guji feels terrible!

Can you help Mother Duck persuade Guji Guji that the ducks have ways to keep safe from the hungry crocodiles?

STE or Math Standards

Science, Technology & Engineering, Grade 4 Life Science, LS1. From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes

• 4-LS1-1. Construct an argument that animals and plants have internal and external structures that support their survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.

ELA Standards

Massachusetts English Language Arts, Writing Standards

• Grade 4, Reading Standards for Informational Text

  3. Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, mathematical, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

• Grade 4, Text Types & Purposes

  2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

  a. Introduce a topic clearly and group related information in paragraphs and sections; include text features (e.g., headings), illustrations, and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.

  b. Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic.

  c. Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.

Video

Guji Guji read by Robert Guillaume

Lesson Summary

“One Well” is a CitizenKid book that discusses the interconnectedness of the water of Earth. This nonfiction read leaves students with the enduring understanding that every raindrop, lake, underground river and glacier is part of a single global well. Each page takes the reader through an aspect of water on Earth, through developing background information and reveals some challenges. Background info: water cycle, aquatic habitats, and how plants and animals use water. The challenges: uneven distribution, access to, demands on and the pollution of water. This comprehensive text ends with a call to action towards water conservation.

Using their knowledge of water on Earth and the Engineering Design Process, students will propose a way to decrease water consumption or increase its availability to areas which have little access to water.

STE or Math Standards

• Science Standard: 5-ESS2-2. Describe and graph the relative amounts of salt water in the ocean; fresh water in lakes, rivers, and groundwater; and fresh water frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps to provide evidence about the availability of fresh water in Earth’s biosphere.
  • State Assessment Boundary: Inclusion of the atmosphere is not expected in state assessment.

  Note: This book could also be used for standard 5-ESS2-1 (Water cycle)​

ELA Standards

• Grade 5 Speaking and Listening Standards [SL]

  Comprehension and Collaboration

  Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Video

One Well: The Story of Water Earth by Rochelle Strauss

Lesson Summary

This is a story about music and how family support and encouragement helped a young musician find his passion. The students will experience jazz music and discover how people make sound or music through instruments.

After listening to the story, students are challenged to use their knowledge of energy transfer to create a musical instrument for Trombone Shorty and his friends. The instrument should use stored energy to create the energy of motion and ultimately sound that can be heard from a distance of 12 feet.

STE or Math Standards

• Energy:
  4-PS3-2. Make observations to show that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.

  4-PS3-4. Apply scientific principles of energy and motion to test and refine a device that converts kinetic energy to electrical energy or uses stored energy to cause motion or produce light or sound.

ELA Standards

• Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.4

  Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.

Video

Trombone Shorty read by Angela Bassett

The Very Busy Spider

Lesson Summary

Design a Spider Web

A spider spends her entire day building her web and has no time to play with the other animals. By the end of the day the spider is so tired that she falls asleep, only catching one fly.

Students will learn how different spiders make all kinds of webs and then design a spider web that can catch and hold at least 20 flies for 1 minute so that the spider has lots to eat after playing with it’s friends.

STE or Math Standards

• Inheritance and Variation of Traits:
  1.LS3.1. Use information from observations (first-hand and from media) to identify similarities and differences among individual plants or animals of the same kind.
• Engineering Design:
  1.K.2.ETS1.2. Generate multiple solutions to a design problem and make a drawing (plan) to represent one or more of the solutions.

ELA Standards

• Comprehension and Collaboration:
  CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.1. Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
  CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.1.A. Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).
  CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.1.B. Build on others’ talk in conversations by responding to the comments of others through multiple exchanges.
  CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.1.C. Ask questions to clear up any confusion about the topics and texts under discussion.

Video

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

Violet’s Music

Lesson Summary

Problem: Design a Musical Instrument

Violet loved music from the time she was a little baby. She thought about music constantly and even built her own horn. Violet was always on the search for more children who see music everywhere too. One summer day, she found others who loved music just as much as she did and together they started a band.

After listening to the story, students will use their knowledge of sound and vibrations to design and build a musical instrument so other children can join Violet’s band too.

STE or Math Standards

• Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer:
  1.PS4.1. Demonstrate that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate.
  1.PS4.4. Use tools and materials to design and build a device that uses light or sound to send a signal over a distance.

ELA Standards

• Comprehension and Collaboration:
  SL.1.1. Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
  SL.1.1.A. Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).
  SL.1.1.B. Build on others’ talk in conversations by responding to the comments of others through multiple exchanges.
  SL.1.1.C. Ask questions to clear up any confusion about the topics and texts under discussion.

Video

Violet’s Music by Angela Johnson

Those Darn Squirrels Fly South

Lesson Summary

Design a device or shelter

Old Man Fookwire, although a grump, has a love of painting colorful birds. Although he finds squirrels a bit pesty, they persuade him to travel south for the winter, just like birds do. During this season in the south, Old Man Fookwire could continue his painting (and maybe not be so grumpy)! In this climate, his body is sweltering in the heat of the sun, which makes painting for long periods of time a hardship.

Design and build a device or shelter that will help Old Man Fookwire stay cool while painting in this hotter climate.  Keep in mind that he has adapted to living in a northern climate and has not yet adapted to the heat of the southern climate.

STE or Math Standards

• Earth’s Systems:
  3.ESS2.2. Obtain and summarize information about the climate of different regions of the world to illustrate that typical weather conditions over a year vary by region.

ELA Standards

• Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas:
  CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.3.4
  Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.

Video

Those Darn Squirrels Fly South by Adam Rubin

Stellaluna

Lesson Summary

Design a device to help the bats or birds

Stellaluna, the bat, gets separated from her mother, and is befriended by a family of birds who teach her how to behave like a bird. She later learns that birds and bats are quite different and can’t always do the same things (even if they want to). 

Design and build a device that will help the birds or Stellaluna do something that their inherited characteristics don’t normally allow them to do (i.e. help the birds to fly at night).

STE or Math Standards

• Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits:
  3-LS3-2. Distinguish between inherited characteristics and those characteristics that result from a direct interaction with the environment. Give examples of characteristics of living organisms that are influenced by both inheritance and the environment.

ELA Standards

• Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas:
  SL3.4 – Report on a topic, text, or solution to a mathematical problem, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace and using appropriate vocabulary.

Video

Stellaluna read by Pamela Reed