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Language Arts - Elementary Curriculum English Language Arts Grade 1
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Reading: Literature Standard 10

With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade 1.
  • A Trip to Wonderland
    This unit explores Lewis Carroll's adaptation for younger readers of his beloved classic, 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. After sharing their concepts about Wonderland, students listen to the opening chapters of the story and view Sir John Tenniel's illustrations from the original edition. Using images of 'big' and 'small' from Alice's experiences, students develop these concepts in their own drawings. Students then compare Carroll's fantastic animals with creatures from other children's stories and use computers to craft images of their own fantasy creatures.
  • All Together Now: Collaborations in Poetry Writing
    This set of 3 lesson plans from EDSITEment makes poetry exciting for students as they listen to, write, and recite poems that are sure to please. By the end of these lessons, students should be able to create lines of poetry in response to poems read aloud, identify musical elements of literary language, and recite short poems or excerpts.
  • Clifford's Interactive Storybooks
    Contains several storybooks starring Clifford, the Big Red Dog. Each line of the book can be read to students. Students have the opportunity to select a word for several sentences.
  • Dr. Seuss's Sound Words: Phonics & Spelling Play
    Boom! Br-r-ring! Cluck! Moo!-Everywhere you turn, you're bound to find exciting sounds. Whether you visit online sites that play sounds or take a sound hike at school, a near-by park, or on a field trip, ask your students to notice the sounds they hear then write their own book, using sound words, based on Dr. Seuss's "Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You?" By focusing on these sound words, this ReadWriteThink lesson helps students develop spelling strategies that help them move from phonemes, the sounds they make, to graphemes, the written representations of those sounds.
  • Magnetic Poetry
    This site has a collection of poems students try to unscramble. It also includes a blank "fridge" where students can create their own magnetic words to use in poems and sentences.
  • Play with Words: Rhyme & Verse
    Children of all ages enjoy listening to bouncy rhythms and reciting catchy rhymes. In this unit from EDSITEment, students will use their senses to experience poetry. Students will listen to poems and rhymes, clap out syllables, and sing along with familiar tunes. They will also use puppets and crafts to help recall and retell favorite poems. Finally, students will experience the joy of crafting their own original poems.
  • Poetry Portfolios: Using Poetry to Teach Reading
    Students learn to read and write when they have an active interest in what they are reading and writing about. This lesson supports students' exploration of language skills as they read and dissect poetry. Through a weekly poem, students explore meaning, sentence structure, rhyming words, sight words, vocabulary, and print concepts. After studying the poem, students are given a copy of the poem to illustrate and share their understanding. All of the poems explored are then compiled into a poetry portfolio for students to take home and share with their families. To further connect home to school, a family poetry project is suggested.
  • Qualitative Elements of Text Complexity Rubric for Literary Texts
    This text complexity rubric provides descriptors of a continua of increasing complexity for literary texts.
  • Teaching Short Vowel Discrimination With Dr. Seuss
    The study of common rimes, or word families, is vital to students' early reading and writing skills. Through the contrast of short vowel patterns, this ReadWriteThink lesson supports first- and second-grade students' use of analogy to apply their knowledge of vowel sounds in reading and spelling new words. The integration of Dr. Seuss rhymes creates an engaging study of onsets and rimes. Students will discover patterns in words, sort words based on their vowel patterns, and apply their knowledge in reading and writing activities.
  • Under the Deep Blue Sea
    In this lesson, students have the opportunity to explore oceans and ocean life. Through creative writing and research projects, students will learn about the ocean and the creatures that live there. This resource is located on the Edsitement website.
  • Unicorns, Dragons, and Other Magical Creatures
    This lesson will explore images of magical creatures from around the world. After discussing the special attributes of such creatures, students will view images of specific mythological creatures from two cultures--a unicorn from the South Netherlands and a dragon from Korea--and listen to stories about them. Finally, students will create puppets representing magical creatures of their own invention, or ones based on the creatures they've learned about, and put on puppet shows, dramatizing original stories about their creatures.


UEN logo http://www.uen.org - in partnership with Utah State Board of Education (USBE) and Utah System of Higher Education (USHE).  Send questions or comments to USBE Specialist - Sara  Wiebke and see the Language Arts - Elementary website. For general questions about Utah's Core Standards contact the Director - Jennifer  Throndsen.

These materials have been produced by and for the teachers of the State of Utah. Copies of these materials may be freely reproduced for teacher and classroom use. When distributing these materials, credit should be given to Utah State Board of Education. These materials may not be published, in whole or part, or in any other format, without the written permission of the Utah State Board of Education, 250 East 500 South, PO Box 144200, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-4200.