Grade: Kindergarten Quarter: 3 Integrated Language Arts & Science Lesson Plan: Desert vs.

Ocean Habitats Wednesday, March 20 Maryland Essential Skills & Knowledge with the CCCS codes ELA.W.K.2: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic. Content Objective: The students will demonstrate understanding of habitats by expressing similarities and differences between the desert and previously learned habitats. Language Objective: The students will draw, write, and talk about animals and plants that are native to desert habitats. Literature: At Home in the Desert Cactus Hotel Deserts Life in a Desert by Carol K. Lindeen Key Vocabulary: Habitat Desert Cactus Dry Yucca Music: Habitat by Walkin Jim Stoltz Habitat Scat by Mar Harman Habitat Homes by Dr. Jean We Love to Learn About the Forest by Sam Jones In the Woods There Was a Tree by Dr. Jean All Around the Pond by Sam Jones Rock, Water and Air by Newbridge Songs for Learning Air, Air Everywhere by Newbridge Songs for Learning Save the Earth by Jack Hartmann Swimming in the Sea by Newbridge Songs for Learning

Engage Phase: State the content and language objectives and display habitat pictures along with them. To activate prior knowledge, sing Habitat by Walkin Jim Stoltz (or any other habitat song) together with the students. Use picture cards as the song is sung, to assist the children in visualizing the habitat. Show the children a real cactus. Show them plastic models of snakes, lizards and spiders, and let them touch real sand. Ask them which habitat might include all of these. Remind the children that there are living things and non-living things in every habitat. See if they can tell you whether sand or water is living or non-living. Repeat with other things found in the desert and the ocean. Explain phase: Recall with the students the books that the class has read from the Habitats series by Carol K. Lindeen. Prepare to read Life in a Desert, from that same series. Begin by showing the cover of the book to the students and having them turn-and-talk to predict what kind of animals or plants might live in a desert habitat. Pull equity sticks and ask some students what animals or plants might live there. Take a picture walk, stating the names of unfamiliar plants and animals. Repeat these new vocabulary words frequently throughout the lesson. Since the Life in an Ocean book was already read the previous day, observe whether the children can state some differences between a desert habitat and ocean habitat. Once the picture walk is done, read the book. Present a giant graphic organizer. Tell the children that they will place labeled pictures on either the desert side or the ocean side.

Explore phase:

Have the students work together on a giant poster board to make either a desert habitat or ocean habitat. Provide students with illustrated vocabulary pages for each habitat. Have groups work cooperatively to create their habitat posters. Ask students to label their pictures, write sentences, and/or write speech bubbles, depending on the students capabilities. Walk around the classroom and monitor student work, asking guiding questions such as What kind of skin does a ____ have?, Why does it belong in that habitat?, Does that animal have legs or fins?, and Why do you think they need them? When the posters are done, each group of students will present their poster to the rest of the class and talk about their habitat (including the animals, plants and features that are characteristic of that habitat). The audience will then point out specific details about the poster that helped them to understand that habitat. Present the students with individual graphic organizers consisting of eight pictures of living things from desert and ocean habitats. Students will glue each picture into the correct column to demonstrate their understanding of habitats. Use games, videos and art projects to further scaffold the childrens learning. Place mats with pictures of each habitat, and plastic animals, in Science Center for children to independently (or with a partner) match. Place books about various habitats in Library Center, including teacher-made books and store-bought books at various levels, to provide children with opportunities to read about lizards, snakes, sharks, fish, etc. For students who are having difficulty, play short video segments for them about real-life animals in their habitats. Video segments include Desert Wildlife from the NeoK12 web site, Habitat! from YouTube, and Magic School Bus Gets Eaten. In Writing Center, place habitat picture cards, colored pencils, crayons, markers, and stapled paper for students to use in their creation of habitat books at their own level. BGL (Below Grade Level) students might produce picture habitat books, OGL (On Grade Level) students may choose three habitats and write a sentence on each page, while AGL (Above Grade Level) students can do one page for each habitat they learned about (with two or three sentences per page). Ongoing assessment will take place throughout the lesson and will be based partly on work produced and partly on observations. Work produced includes collaborative student posters and student-made books. Observations include participation in songs, comments in whole group, and how the students classify animals in Science Center. The culminating assessment will be a final writing project in which students will write sentences about a habitat of their choosing, guided by a sentence starter and/or word bank based on their request. To provide some closure for the students, their posters and final writing projects will be displayed on bulletin boards. Students will take a gallery walk to see their peers work. The class will participate in a discussion in which they state their favorite part of the lesson. Encourage students to continue their studies of habitats when they are traveling with their family, watching television, reading books, or taking virtual trips on the computer.

Elaborate Phase:

Evaluation Phase:

Closure