Appendix: Implementing Third Grade ELA Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards
The goal of this unit is to help students develop social skills and problem-solving skills by analyzing the choices made by the characters and by distinguishing their points of view from those of the character and/or the narrator, therefore focusing on the following Reading Literature standards: R.L3.3: Describe characters in a story and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events and R.L. 3.6: Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters. Winnie-the-Pooh exposes the students to playful language, which ties in R.L 3.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from non-literal language.
Students explore the information about real Winnie and about different types of bears, thus focusing on Reading Information Standards: R.I. 3.6: Distinguish their point of view from that of the author of a text,; and R.I. 3.4: Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a third grade topic or subject area.
As students perform activities involving narratives and opinion pieces they focus on these writing standards: W.3.1: Write opinion pieces on topics of texts, supporting a point of view with reasons; and W3.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details; and clear event sequences. In this unit, students explore and perform a research on the life cycle, adaptations, inherited traits, and ecosystem of bears and other animals in their environment, which focuses on W.3.7: Conduct short research project that build knowledge about a topic.
Through various cooperative-learning strategies involving partner and group work, students develop social skills, respectful interactions, and collaboration with peers bringing in Speaking and Listening Standards: SL.3.1 Engaged effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on great three topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and SL.3.3 Ask and answer questions about information from the speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.
Students will design solutions to problems such as floods and disappearing bees; therefore, the unit connects to the following Next Generation Science Standards: 3-5-ETS1-2: Engineering design: Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem; 3-LS3-1: Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence that plants and animals have traits inherited from parents and that variation of these traits exists in a group of similar organisms; 3-LS3-2: Use evidence to support the explanation that traits can be influenced by the environment.
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