English Language Arts Grade 1
Educational Links

Reading: Informational Text Standard 8

Identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text.

• Dr. King's Dream
  In this lesson, students will learn about the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Students will listen to a brief biography, view photographs of the March on Washington, hear a portion of King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, and discuss what King's words mean to them. Finally, they will create picture books about their own dreams of freedom for Americans today.
• Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Hieroglyphs
  This lesson plan from EDSITEment introduces students to the writing, art, and religious beliefs of ancient Egypt through hieroglyphs, one of the oldest writing systems in the world, and through tomb paintings. The lesson plan is in two parts. In this first lesson, the class creates a pictorial alphabet of its own and then learns and uses the symbols of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet. In the second lesson, Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Scroll Painting, students identify and represent in their own drawings figures from the Book of the Dead, a funeral text written on papyrus and carved on the walls of tombs to help guide the deceased through the afterlife.
• Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Scroll Paintings
  This lesson plan from EDSITEment introduces students to the writing, art, and religious beliefs of ancient Egypt through hieroglyphs, one of the oldest writing systems in the world, and through tomb paintings. The lesson plan is in two parts. In this second lesson, students identify and represent in their own drawings figures from the Book of the Dead, a funeral text written on papyrus and carved on the walls of tombs to help guide the deceased through the afterlife. In the first lesson, Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Hieroglyphs, the class creates a pictorial alphabet of its own and then learns and uses the symbols of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet.
• If You Were a Pioneer on the Oregon Trail
  In this lesson from EDSITEment, students compare imagined travel experiences of their own with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers. After creating, as a class, oral stories about contemporary cross-country journeys, students learn about the experiences of the emigrants who traveled on the Oregon Trail. They then create works of historical fiction in the form of picture books, drawing upon the information they have learned.
• Listen, Look & Learn: An Info Gathering Process
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, primary students will work together as a class group to seek for information on the sloth. A variety of resources and formats will be used with notes recorded on an information wheel graphic organizer.
• Literature Circles with Primary Students
  This lesson from ReadWriteThink is a structured guideline for helping students learn to think about the books they read, and to ask questions about books shared by other students. It is especially appropriate for mixed-age and upper primary classes, or for cross-grade buddy work.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and Me: Identifying with a Hero
  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day provides a great opportunity to teach about heroes. This lesson explores ways to help students identify with Dr. King - an American hero who lived and died long before they were even born - through reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities that provide a glimpse into Dr. King's life. Students record what they know about Dr. King on a KWL chart. They then read aloud the picture book My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers and add information to the KWL. They take a virtual tour of King's birth home and compare it to their own homes. Throughout the week, they explore Websites and other sources of information about Dr. King, record new information on the KWL chart, and keep a journal of their own thoughts and ideas. As a culminating activity, they plan a birthday party for Dr. King to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
• My Piece of History
  In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students examine pictures of household objects from the late 20th century, gather historical information about them from older family members, and then create an in-class exhibit of historical objects from their own homes.
• Portrait of a Hero
  Through the series of interactive activities, students will explore their beliefs about heroes and heroism. They will share names of familiar figures they consider to be heroes, and then closely examine their reasons for believing each one is a hero. Students will then view portraits of heroes from American history, and glean a bit of background information on each one.
• Sky 3: Modeling Shadows
  This lesson is part of a four-lesson series in which students observe the daytime and nighttime sky regularly to identify sequences of changes and to look for patterns in these changes. At the K-2 level, learning about objects in the sky should be entirely observational and qualitative. The priority is to get students noticing and describing what objects in the sky look like at different times.
• Stars and Stripes Forever: Flag Facts for Flag Day
  In this unit from EDSITEment, students learn what a symbol is while developing their understanding of how one particular symbol, the American Flag, plays an important role in the everyday lives of American citizens. An additional lesson, geared specifically to grade 2 students, focuses on the words and phrases contained within the Pledge of Allegiance. From this introductory page, teachers can access archival images needed to complete the unit.
• Stories in Quilts
  Heighten your students' awareness of how quilts tell stories that reflect the lives of the people who create them, and that record the cultural history of a particular place and time. Students will be able to understand how quilts and other cloth-based art forms are used to preserve family and community traditions and recognize that people of different countries and cultures use cloth-based art forms to pass down their traditions and history.
• The Day Jimmy's Boa Taught Cause and Effect
  Students will participate in class discussions about cause and effect during oral reading; draw pictures illustrating cause-and-effect examples from texts; illustrate examples of cause and effect; write their own examples of cause and effect; create their own cause-and-effect book and book cover.
• The Frog Beyond the Fairy Tale Character
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students consider their prior knowledge about frogs by predicting whether eight statements are true or false. Students verify their predictions through the guided use of the website "The Somewhat Amusing World of Frogs." This lesson is best used for grades 1 and 2 and can be connected to the study of amphibians or to the reading of Arnold Lobel's "Frog and Toad" series.
• 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.
• Using Folk Tales: Vowel Influences on the Letter G
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students are introduced to the irregular spelling pattern of hard and soft g at the beginning of words, using the folk tale genre. Students use the Internet to find and categorize animal names that begin with the letter g, and they also read a story about a giant.
• What's the Difference? Beginning Writers Compare E-mail with Letter Writing
  Students will compare an e-mail message and a letter on the same topic and discuss how they are written differently and why; recognize differences in the form and function of the two genres and how these differences impact communication style and conventions; develop their understanding of the choices they must make as writers with respect to the appropriate form, function, and audience for different kinds of communication.

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