In Kindergarten, students lay the foundation for success in English Language Arts in elementary school. There are two main goals of the Kindergarten ELA curriculum: to instill a love of reading within all students by introducing engaging texts and authors and to help students learn about the environment around them—particularly how the changing seasons influence weather, animals, and plants. In each unit, students engage in short writing projects connected to the core texts that develop their narrative, informational, and opinion writing skills.
Using authentic, engaging read-aloud texts, teachers help students develop their language comprehension and address grade-level reading, writing, language, and speaking and listening standards. Over the course of Kindergarten ELA, students deepen their understanding of the world around them through thematically-aligned, knowledge-building units, embedded daily writing instruction, and frequent opportunities for in-class discussion.
Unit 1
13 Lessons
Students discover what it means to be part of a classroom community, and learn how they can make the classroom a fun place to be by exploring a variety of texts and activities.
Unit 2
13 Lessons
Students become engaged in reading through a variety of familiar stories with predictable patterns and illustrations that allow them to anticipate words, phrases, and events on their own.
Unit 3
16 Lessons
Students begin a year-long exploration of the seasons and how weather, plants, and animals are different depending on the season by reading about the beauties of fall and fall harvests.
Unit 4
22 Lessons
Students explore the works of four award-winning authors and illustrators, Grace Lin, Yuyi Morales, Monica Brown and Jerry Pinkney, learning about their lives and inspirations.
Unit 5
20 Lessons
Students explore the beauties of winter through a variety of texts about winter, learning about winter weather and weather forecasts and how different animals and plants survive winter.
Unit 6
18 Lessons
Students begin to explore African American history and the civil rights movement, serving as a launch for further discussions around discrimination, justice, and valuing individuals.
Unit 7
22 Lessons
Students study the life cycles of different plants and animals and the characteristics of living, nonliving, and dead things, through multiple engaging informational texts and hands-on activities.
Unit 8
17 Lessons
Students learn about how to save the earth by reducing, reusing, and recycling. Students learn why waste is a problem, about the options for limiting waste, and read stories about different people from around the world who have found ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle waste.
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