Sarah Graske

EEND678
10/4/16
Understanding by Design
Kindergarten Weather Unit

Stage 1 Identify Desired Results

Established Common Core State Standards:

With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text
in which they appear (e.g., what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration
depicts). (K.RI.7)
With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
(K.RI.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. (K.W.2)
With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and
publish writing, including in collaboration with peers. (K.W.6)
With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather
information from provided sources to answer a question. (K.W.8)
Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and
responding to texts. (K.L.6)

What essential questions will be

considered?

How does the daily weather affect

your life?

How can we be prepared for the

weather?

How do seasons impact the weather?

What understandings are desired?

Students will understand that

Different seasons tend to have specific

types of weather.
Weather can affect your life in both
positive and negative ways.
We can use our knowledge of weather to
help be prepared.

What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit?
Students will know
Students will be able to
The names of the seasons.
Compose an informational text about a
Weather identification
weather concept.
How to use weather vocabulary terms
Identify the main idea and details of an
correctly.
informational text.

How to identify different types of

weather patterns.

Assess Weather scenarios as positive or

negative

Stage 2 Determine Acceptable Evidence

What evidence will show that students understand?
Performance Tasks: (student products & performances with clear criteria used to
evaluate)
1. Non-fiction weather book using My Story
2. Skitch to create photo vocabulary cards
3. Shadow Puppet to be used to identify and explain how weather affects our lives.
4. SeeSaw to collect lesson artifacts.

5. What other evidence needs to be collected in light of Stage 1 Desired Results?

Other Evidence: (tests, quizzes, prompts, work samples, observations, etc)
As we begin this unit we will create a Popplet to document our background knowledge
and concepts of what weather is, what weather can look like and how weather can impact
our lives.
We will use a digital vocabulary card focus on vocabulary concepts to identify and
understand types of weather as well as weather related vocabulary. Students will be
provided with a weather terms /photos as a guide for their personal and group work.
Students will create a 4 square to illustrate the 4 seasons.
We will create a daily weather calendar to note our daily observations of the weather, to
track and compare how weather changes from day to day.
We will also discuss how the weather impacts life each day. In addition to our digital
assignments, we will do a post assessment to compare to our initial understandings.

Stage 3 Plan Learning Experience

Sequence of teaching and learning experiences (engage, develop and demonstrate the desired
understandings)
1
Play winter storm video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2lb_Yv6S_s Pose the
questions, what type of weather do you see in this video? What does it look like? How
does it feel? If the weather today , was like the weather you see in this video how
would that affect you? Would it change your normal day? Briefly discuss
2
What is weather? What do you know about weather? Create a Popplet

to chart and

display what we already know.

Read pages 4 and 5 of the book What is Weather? Provide students with weather
terms/ photo card
3
Create a Weather calendar and note observations of temperature, wind, sun and
precipitation. Students will give each day a thumbs up, neutral, or thumbs down.
4
Review weather terms
Students will use pre- loaded weather photos on ipads, and use Skitch to label photos.
5
Learn about the 4 Seasons with books and videos. Create a 4 square to illustrate all
seasons.
6
Read the pages Rain or Shine and discuss how these changes in weather affect our
day.
Once a week students will share a photo of their calendar on SeeSaw and will pick the
day they liked the
most or the least related to how the weather impacted
them. Such as, Wednesday was my least favorite day because it rained and made the
field too soggy to play soccer.
7
Read Dress for the Weather. Students will illustrate three pictures of appropriate
clothing for three different weather scenarios.
1. A hot, sunny day
2. A cold, snowy day
3. Choice
4. They will use their illustrations in Shadow puppet and narrate the images with
sentence frames. I would wear ______________ on a _______________ day so that I will
feel ____________________.
8
Read A Rainy Day
Students can use SeeSaw to write, draw or record the main idea and key details. We
will continue to add to the
calendar and reflect on which weather days felt positive or
negative and why.
We will also load all artifacts to SeeSaw and review and reflect as a group.
9
As a final project individuals or pairs will create their own nonfiction weather text using
MyStory. Each text will be evaluated using the Kindergarten digital book rubric.

W Ensure that students understand WHERE the unit is headed, and WHY.
H HOOK students in the beginning and HOLD their attention throughout.
E EQUIP students will necessary experiences, tools, knowledge, and know-how to meet

performance goals.
R Provide students with numerous opportunities to RETHINK big ideas, REFLECT on progress,
and REVISE their work.
E Build in opportunities for students to EVALUATE progress and self-assess.
T Be TAILORED to reflect individual talents, interests, styles, and needs.
O Be ORGANIZED to optimize deep understanding as opposed to superficial coverage.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2006). Understanding by Design (2 nd ed.). New Jersey: Pearson.