Newell Elementary School
Grade Level Curriculum Overview
Math:
Innovamat Math Overview
Innovamat is a competency-based educational program for teaching and learning mathematics. Learning based on practices generates knowledge that is more solid, connected, critical, and long lasting; developing a comprehensive mathematical experience. Innovamat focuses on the processes of Problem Solving, Reasoning and Proof, Connections, and Communication and Representation.
Students will build knowledge while exploring manipulative and digital materials, collaborate and discuss multiple ways to answer challenging questions, and strengthen strategies by working in meaningful contexts.
Language Arts:
We follow Lucy Calkin’s Workshop Model. Our lessons are delivered whole group, small group, and individually, to meet the needs of all learners.
Reading Units of Study:
- Second Grade Reading Growth Spurt
In this unit, students will begin to preview, read, and retell longer books, while self-monitoring for fluency, accuracy and comprehension. Students will also learn new strategies for word-solving quickly and independently. They will begin to study author craft, analyzing the techniques authors use to build their stories.
- Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power
In this unit, students will learn that reading with a clear, smooth voice inside their heads is a key to reading stronger, longer, and with more understanding. Students will also start to become aware of (and look for) literary language, including comparisons, inventive words, and figurative language. As they tackle longer and longer books, students will call on different strategies to 'keep the thread' of a story, and find their way back if they lose it. Finally, they will self-assess and set new reading goals for themselves.
- Becoming Experts: Reading Nonfiction
In this unit, students will learn that as a nonfiction reader proceeds through a text, the reader continues to accumulate knowledge and vocabulary about a topic. They will prepare by thinking about what a text might teach them and looking for familiar text structures.Students will begin to learn new vocabulary (lingo)around a topic, and bring strategic energy to solving key words that are unfamiliar. Finally, students will read 'across' a topic, comparing and contrasting information across different texts.
- Nonfiction Reading Clubs
In this unit, readers revisit strategies for reading nonfiction text. They will 'teach' the information they learn to others, as well as discuss thoughts and ideas they have developed in response to text. Students will compare and contrast information and ideas across multiple sources.
- Series Book Clubs
In this unit, students will join series book clubs and study a main character across several books. They will pay attention to ways in which authors use craft techniques to story-tell and achieve certain goals as writers (for example, conveying a specific theme.) Students will also learn to take a stance on a character, and collect evidence in their text to justify that stance.
- Reading and Role Playing: Fairy Tales and More
In this unit, students will explore the language, patterns, features, and themes of fairy tales.
Writing Units of Study:
Launching Writer’s Workshop- In Pictures and in Words
In this unit, students will develop an identity as a writer who not only makes choices about what to write, but also has the needed tools and is able to work independently. Students will study illustrations in many different mentor texts, looking at the ways those illustrations enhance the meaning of the story. Finally, students will use both pictures and words to write in a genre of choice.
Lessons from Masters: Improving Narrative Writing
In this unit, students will generate story ideas and choose one to develop. In addition to bringing characters to life (by having them move/talk/think/feel), students will draw on simple craft moves they identify in mentor texts. Students will study mentor texts to learn ways in which authors use sensory language, precise language, spotlight strong feelings, etc. Students will also move more independently through the writing process than in the previous unit.
The How To Guide for Writing Nonfiction
In this unit, students will identify an area of expertise in order to plan and write a nonfiction book. Students will think considerably about their audience: the type of information a reader might want to learn, engaging the reader right from the start, using vivid words and interesting comparisons, answering potential questions a reader may have, and organizing the book in a way a reader will understand. Students will also edit the book with the reader in mind, knowing that correct spelling and punctuation will allow an audience to read smoothly and focus on the content.
Writing About Reading
In this unit, students will develop opinions about their reading, and share them with others in the form of letters. They will learn to state their opinions clearly, retell the stories so their opinions make sense to readers, and revise their letters. As the unit progresses, students will learn to read and reread to form new opinions and mine for the text evidence to support them. Finally, students will nominate a book which is worthy of an award, using an essay format with reasons and supporting evidence.
Poetry: Big Thoughts in Small Packages
In this unit, students will learn to see the world with a "poet's eye," collecting and studying objects with all of their senses. They will begin to choose topics that hold 'big feelings,' understanding that their own stories and wonderings can be shaped into poetry. Students will practice the way in which poets choose precise words, use repetition, and convey moods and feelings in their writing. They will also learn to notice the structure of poetry, seeing lists + stories, and questions + answers, as ways to organize poems.
Fundations:
We follow Wilson Fundations. This is a systematic program in the foundational skills for reading and spelling, emphasizing phonemic awareness, phonics-word study, high frequency word study, fluency, vocabulary, handwriting, and spelling. Readers can use word sounds, word parts, and word structures to decode new words. Letters and letter combinations symbolize sounds. Readers can use word structures and parts to solve the whole word. Sentences contain predictable parts of speech and punctuation.
The concepts introduced and focused on throughout the year are:
Segmenting syllables into sounds
Identifying word structures such as vowels, consonants, blends, digraphs, digraph blends
Identifying parts of words such as syllables, basewords, suffixes, etc.
Reading/spelling with short vowels
Reading/spelling with long vowels in VCE words and open syllables
Reading/spelling words with r-controlled vowels (ar, er, ir, or, ur)
Reading/spelling words with vowel teams(ai, ay, ee, ey, ea, oi, oy, oa, ow, oe, ou, oo, ue, ew, au, aw)
Reading/spelling words with unexpected vowel sounds (old, ild, ind, ost, olt, ive)
Reading/spelling words with suffixes (s, we, ed, ing, est, ish, able, ive, y, ful, ment, less, ness, ly, ty)
Reading/spelling phonetically regular one-, two- and three-syllable words
Reading/spelling words targeted high-frequency words
Dividing multisyllabic words
Constructing sentences using vocabulary words
Using synonyms
Differentiating multiple meaning words
Science:
We follow Mystery Science that meets the Next Generation Science Standards.
Units of Study Include:
Animal Biodiversity
In this unit, students begin to develop an understanding of the world's animal biodiversity. They explore animal classification and the traits that define each group. Students then turn their focus to habitats and how the surrounding environment affects what organisms live in a particular environment.
Plant Adaptations
In this unit, students explore the needs of plants through hands-on investigations. They explore how and why plants disperse their seeds, what those seeds need in order to grow, and what the adult plants need in order to survive and thrive.
Erosion & Earth’s Surface
In this unit, students explore how water shapes the Earth's surface. Students construct and use models of mountains to demonstrate that water flows downhill, and in the process, transforms huge rocks into the tiny grains of sand we find at the beach. Students also construct and use model hills to determine the causes of erosion, and to design solutions to problems caused by erosion.
Material Properties
In this unit, students explore the properties of materials and matter! They describe and classify different types of materials by properties like hardness, flexibility, and absorbency, and they investigate how those properties are useful in meeting basic human needs (such as clothing and cooking). They also investigate how heating and cooling affect the properties of materials.
Social Studies:
We follow TCI Social Studies Alive!
What is a Community?
During this unit, students will gain an understanding of what makes a "community."
How are Communities Different?
During this unit, students learn about the three different types of communities; urban, rural, and suburban.
How do we Use Maps?
During this unit, students learn about maps and map tools.
Geography
During this unit, students learn that communities have different geographic features and that physical maps show these features.
How Do People Use Our Environment?
Throughout this unit, students will explore how people use (and misuse) our environment.
How are Good Made and Brought to Us?
In this unit, students will learn how goods are produced and distributed
Who Provides Services in a Community?
Throughout this unit, students learn about people who provide services in a community.
Characteristics of a Successful Learner: In this area NES staff focuses on teaching students to be–
Effective Communicators by listening attentively and speaking
clearly with appropriate volume.
Self-Directed Learners by taking initiative and works independently,
uses time effectively, and preservers in task completion.
Collaborative Team Member by working cooperatively with peers,is
respectful of the ideas, rights and feelings of others.
Creative and Practical Problem Solver by taking learning risks and
Considers multiple solutions to problems.
Mindfulness: Focuses on empowering students to:
develop self-awareness tools
develop self-management tools
to be calm
to be focused
to be connected
to be energetically balanced
These skills are taught through breath, movement and mindfulness practices in order for students to be ready to learn.