Teacher's Resource - Nelson Education

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OPPORTUNITIES FOR WRITING/REPRESENTING Throughout this unit, students have numerous opportunities to practise planning and drafting using a variety of forms. Their work in progress should be stored in their writing folder. Consider asking students to select one or two pieces to revise, edit, and publish. You may wish to use BLM 9: Writing Process Assessment Checklist to assess students’ work at various stages of writing. A mini-lesson is provided in each unit to help you develop students’ writing skills. This unit includes the mini-lesson Drafting and Revising: Word Choice (page 33). Consult the Nelson Literacy Overview for a list of mini-lessons that can be used to support students as they work through the writing process. ASSESSMENT AND ASSESSMENT DATA The instructional focuses of the unit are the focuses for assessment: visualizing while reading, identifying which details are important to the main idea, visualizing while listening, identifying the characteristics of a poster, and identifying the characteristics of descriptive text pattern. Throughout the unit, there are multiple opportunities to observe as students learn, practise, and demonstrate target strategies. Formative assessment data (generated by discussion opportunities, Key Assessment Questions, and Demonstration Tasks) can be recorded on specific assessment tools. By analyzing the data, you can guide students through subsequent lessons with the correct level of support. The data can help you plan for instruction, differentiate instruction, and begin to make evaluative decisions about students’ progress for reporting purposes. The Performance Task provides valuable summative assessment data that can be used for reporting and for communicating with parents, caregivers, and administrators. Students are invited to assess their own learning throughout the unit. They can use their self-assessment data to make adaptations to their learning and to set personal goals for future learning. ASSESSMENT TOOLS • Oral Language Tracking Sheet (BLM 2): You may wish to use this tracking sheet when observing students during the unit launch and periodically throughout the unit. Taking multiple opportunities to focus on a small number of students at a time allows you to observe every student over the course of the unit. • Small-Group Observation Tracking Sheet (BLM 3): This tool can be used to monitor and make notes on students’ participation in various small-group activities in all the organizers: oral language, reading and viewing, and writing and representing. • Strategy Rubric Strips (BLMs 6, 10, 14, 16, 17): These help facilitate recording and updating student achievement data over the course of the unit. Each rubric strip focuses on one strategy, and has multiple checkboxes so you can reuse this tool every time the student is required to demonstrate the target strategy. Use the rubric strips to determine the correct level of support for students in subsequent lessons and plot students’ progress over the course of the unit. • Reading Response and Performance Task Rubric (BLM 21): Intended for use at the end of the unit, this rubric is for recording assessments of student achievement in oral language, reading and writing skills. The data can be used as a summative measure of the students’ ability to demonstrate the strategies and skills taught in the unit as a whole. The rubric facilitates reporting and links to the Performance Standards. • Self-Assessment Checklist and Personal Goal Setting (BLM 4): Throughout the unit, students are invited to assess their own ability to use the strategies taught in the unit. They can use their selfassessment data to make adaptations to their learning and to set personal goals for future learning. • Metacognition: The ability to think about and reflect on one’s own thinking and learning processes is a key skill for successful learners. Metacognition is a crucial step in the self-assessment process. Every unit in Nelson Literacy 4 engages students in metacognitive activities by means of Reflect On questions in the Student Book, recurring self-assessment opportunities within each lesson, and the Criteria for Success self-assessment checklist included in the Performance Task (see BLM 20: Performance Task—Design a Creature and Its Habitat). Ongoing Activities The following activities can be done concurrently with the unit. VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT: BUILDING A WORD WALL 1. Create two word lists at the beginning of the unit to help students build vocabulary. Use one list to capture key content words related to the study of habitats. Focus on words students are likely to encounter in Science in the years to come (such as “herbivore”), rather than on words that are rarely used outside specialized contexts (such as “liana”). Use the second list to highlight verbs that aid visualization. 10 Nelson Literacy 4 Teacher’s Resource: Habitats and Communities NEL
2. Add words throughout the unit and invite students to suggest words for the wall. Refer students to the wall as they talk and write about habitats and communities. Your class’s word lists might look something like this: Key Content Words litter feeders recyclers canopy understorey carnivore herbivore omnivore Verbs That Help You Visualize seeped riddled poke compete dangle crowds out drift howled scrambled gnawed VOCABULARY STRATEGIES Vocabulary strategies are introduced in some of the lessons. As each new strategy is introduced, record it on a class list of vocabulary strategies. Encourage students to refer to this list whenever they encounter an unfamiliar word in their reading. From time to time, model the strategies on this list while working on other curriculum subjects. YOUR LOCAL HABITAT: DEVELOPING A BULLETIN BOARD 1. Engage students in a discussion about the natural environment near the school. Ask: • Where can you find nature close to our school (park, wooded area, open field, hills or mountains, pond, river, lake, ocean) • What do you see there (rolling hills, water, trees, tall grass, squirrels, birds, frogs) • What do you hear or smell (birds singing, wind blowing through trees, wildflowers) • How does this place change with the seasons (leaves change colour, pond freezes over, animals hibernate) 2. Ask students to suggest words that describe the local habitat, prompting them to think about plants, animals, land features, and climate. Write each word or phrase on a small index card. Tack these to a bulletin board and let students decide on a title for the board. 3. Over the course of the unit, give students opportunities to add to and revisit the bulletin board. Family and Community Connections Students benefit from the active engagement of family members and community partners in their learning. Family members may talk with students and engage in activities that enhance the relevance of the unit content. Their interest motivates student achievement and facilitates communication with the school about performance. Community members may introduce students to the diversity around them as they learn about hobbies, careers, and cultural connections that expand their worlds. As one tool in establishing a communication link with family members and the community beyond the school, you may wish to reproduce or adapt the letter to parents/guardians in BLM 1: Family and Community Connections. What You Need NELSON LITERACY COMPONENTS OTHER NELSON RESOURCES OTHER RESOURCES Student Book 4a Habitats and Communities Teacher’s Resource Transparencies for Teacher Modelling Guided and Independent Reading Kit Audio CD Boldprint 4: Bugs PM Library, Sapphire Level: Jungle Trek PM + , Ruby Level: Where Would We Be Without Plants Wildlife in the City Frogs: Fascinating … and Fragile Power Magazine, Volume 4: Basketball Water Sports Skyrider Chapter Books 4: The Living Rain Forest Skyrider Double Takes 4: Helpful or Harmful Wood Stork Swamp Skyrider Investigations 4: Lake Life George, Jean Craighead. The Fire Bug Connection: An Ecological Mystery. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. George, Jean Craighead. There’s an Owl in the Shower. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. Hewitt, Sally. All Kinds of Habitats. New York: Children’s Press, 1999. Llewellyn, Claire. Protect Natural Habitats. North Mankato, MN: Chrysalis Education, 2003. Pipe, Jim. Ecosystems. North Mankato, MN: Aladdin Books, 2005. Riley, Peter. Habitats. Milwaukee, WI: Gareth Stevens, 2003. Woods, Shirley. Amber: The Story of a Red Fox. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2004. Woods, Shirley. Jack: The Story of a Beaver. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2002. NEL Planning the Unit 11
Page 1 and 2: Teacher’s Resource Sample materia
Page 3 and 4: STEP 3 Use Transparencies for Teach
Page 5 and 6: CANADA’S REGIONS Social Studies 4
Page 7: Student Book 4a, pages 41-66 PRESCR
Page 11 and 12: Copyright © 2008 by Thomson Nelson
Page 13: Which of the animals below live in
Page 16 and 17: Teacher Modelling Transparency 6 Us
Page 18 and 19: 5. Direct students’ attention to
Page 21 and 22: In a Rainforest Instructional Focus
Page 23 and 24: OR FOR THOSE STUDENTS WHO NEED ADDI
Page 25 and 26: Tropical rainforests are found near

Teacher's Resource - Nelson Education

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