Frequently Asked Questions

Our core materials (including unit preparation guidance, daily lesson plans, and post-unit assessments) are offered as Open Educational Resources. This means that the materials can be used and adapted for free under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Fishtank ELA and Fishtank Math are year-long, standards-aligned, comprehensive curricula and instructional materials. Elements of the curriculum can also be used supplementally.

Our Teachers Tools for ELA and Math contain comprehensive guidance on lesson components and instructional strategies, and are a great place to start as you begin using Fishtank curriculum.

Fishtank lessons are designed for 60-minute class periods. Many units also have multi-day lesson series, which are indicated in the lesson map.

Your free Fishtank account has no expiration date. You can access our free Fishtank curriculum resources forever!

At this time, we do not offer workbooks or consumables for the Fishtank curriculum. We will share an update when we begin offering this option.

Writing instruction and language and grammar skills are embedded directly into Fishtank lessons and units, and all Fishtank ELA writing assignments are connected to a core text, or ask students to write about content knowledge from the unit, ensuring that all students have equal access to the assignment. Classrooms using Fishtank ELA don’t need a separate writing block or separate writing curriculum.

Our Kindergarten–2nd grade courses do not include a comprehensive foundational skills block. To ensure students master all grade-level standards, we recommend you implement a highly-rated structured phonics program alongside the Fishtank units.

In 3rd–8th grade, we offer Fluency Assessments and our Foundational Skills Teacher Tool, which focuses on teaching and assessing reading fluency.

Fishtank ELA units use trade books that are available through the book vendor of your choice. You can view or download a list of each course's required texts on our ELA Course Materials page.

If you are a school or district adopting Fishtank ELA, you can work with your school partnership manager to request an introduction to our text vendor partner, The Reading Warehouse.

We will be releasing Fishtank Plus for 11th and 12th Grade ELA for the 2025-26 school year.

Every lesson’s Target Task is accompanied by a mastery response. Sample student responses for Anchor Tasks/Problems and answer keys for Problem Sets are available with a Fishtank Plus subscription. 

We may develop Kindergarten–2nd grade math courses at some point in the future. We will share an update as we begin developing these courses.

We may develop Fishtank Plus features for our high school math courses at some point in the future. We will share an update if we begin offering this option.

Fishtank Plus offers additional content and features within each Fishtank unit and lesson to support your planning and preparation.

If you are a Fishtank Plus subscriber, you can review Fishtank Plus Users FAQs for more information on all of your premium features. 

Individual teachers who purchase Fishtank Plus access for more than one course automatically save 20% on each additional course at checkout.

Because of the downloadable nature of our content, we don’t currently offer free trials of Fishtank Plus. We do offer samples and previews of the Plus features for ELA and math.

Fishtank accounts (and any associated Plus subscriptions) are meant to be used by a single user, and when a log-in is used on a second computer, the first will be logged out. We recommend that teams using Fishtank Plus check out our options for school site licenses. 

Individual Fishtank Plus subscriptions offer access to the suite of Plus features. School packages offer unlimited Fishtank Plus subscriptions to equip all teachers and staff with their own access for a flat annual rate. School packages also offer orientation, consultation, and the option to add onboarding and ongoing professional learning.

We do! You can request an introductory conversation and custom quote from our school partnerships team to get the process started.

We offer professional learning for our ELA and Math programs in a variety of formats. Explore the options or contact us to begin planning with our professional learning team.