Summary of Skills

Unit 1: Amazing Weather [S]

Science

• Describe weather using quantitative measures of temperature, wind direction, wind speed, and precipitation.
• Discuss and determine how energy from the Sun warms the land, air, and water.
• Gather information using simple equipment and tools.
• Give examples of ways living organisms depend on their environments.
• Identify and use common tools to measure weather: wind vane (wind direction), anemometer (wind velocity), thermometer, and rain gauge.
• Identify characteristics of living organisms.
• Identify external characteristics of plants and animals that allow them to meet their needs.
• Identify how natural hazards impact communities.
• Investigate and describe how moving air interacts with objects.
• Observe and record changes in weather and season.
• Observe and record the function of animal and plant parts.
• Observe and record weather changes over time and relate to time of day and year.
• Observe the force of air pressure pushing on objects.

Social Studies

• Interpret maps, charts, and pictures of locations.
• Define geography and use geographic terms to describe landforms, bodies of water, weather, and climate.
• Describe the role of a geographer and apply geographic tools such as maps, globes, compasses, and photographs in the understanding of places and regions.
• Identify and describe the people, vegetation, and animal life specific to certain regions and describe their interdependence.
• Identify major landforms and bodies of water.
• Identify the absolute and relative locations of communities.
• Use symbols, find locations, and determine direction using maps and globes.

Unit 1: Tornado [LA]

Language Arts

• Compare language and oral traditions from different cultures.
• Compare similarities and differences between oneself and another.
• Connect and compare information within and across selections (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama) to personal experience and knowledge.
• Discuss meanings of words and develop vocabulary through meaningful experiences.
• Draw and discuss visual images based on text description.
• Examine author's decisions and word choice.
• Explain and describe new concepts and information in own words (e.g., plot, setting, major events, characters, author's message, connections, topic, key vocabulary, key concepts, text features).
• Identify elements of fiction by determining plot, sequence, and resolution.
• Increase oral and written vocabulary by listening, discussing, and composing texts when responding to literature that is read and heard.
• Locate and discuss examples of an author's use of declarative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences.
• Locate information about a topic.
• Make inferences and draw conclusions from a text.
• Make predictions about events in a story.
• Produce a summary of a text.
• Read and comprehend figurative language in text.
• Read classic and contemporary works.
• Read critically to interpret and evaluate.
• Read expository materials for answers to specific questions.
• Read independently.
• Read orally with fluency.
• Recall main ideas, facts, and details from a text.
• Recognize distinguishing features of stories.
• Represent text information in different ways including story maps, charts, and graphs.
• Retell a story or parts of a story.
• Retell or act out the order of important events in a story.
• Write sentences with subjects and verbs.
• Write to communicate with an audience.

Science

• Describe weather.

Social Studies

• Analyze environmental issues and their impact on culture.

Unit 2: The Land [S]

Social Studies

• Cite ways people modify the physical environment to meet their needs.
• Define geography and use geographic terms to describe landforms, bodies of water, weather, and climate.
• Describe the role of a geographer and apply geographic tools such as maps, globes, compasses, and photographs in the understanding of locations and characteristics of places and regions.
• Describe the role of a geographer and apply geographic tools, such as maps, globes, compasses, and photographs in the understanding of locations and characteristics of places and regions.
• Explain how people depend on the environment to meet certain needs.
• Identify and describe the people, vegetation, and animal life specific to certain regions and describe their interdependence.
• Identify changes in the environment.
• Identify natural resources and cite ways to conserve and replenish natural resources.
• Identify the absolute and relative location of communities.

Unit 2: Sarah, Plain and Tall [LA]

Language Arts

• Attend to spelling, mechanics, and format for final products in one's own writing.
• Begin writing more complex sentences in addition to simple sentences.
• Compare and contrast characters within a book.
• Compose first drafts.
• Connect ideas from a text to personal experiences.
• Demonstrate understanding of informational text.
• Describe the plot of a story.
• Develop vocabulary through reading.
• Discuss main ideas, facts, and details from a text.
• Discuss the effect of an author's choices for nouns, verbs, modifiers, and specific vocabulary to help the reader comprehend a narrative or expository text.
• Edit and correct word order in sentences.
• Explain and describe characters in own words.
• Explain and describe new concepts and information in own words — plot, setting, characters, and theme.
• Explain and describe the setting of a story.
• Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.
• Identify a theme in a story.
• Locate main ideas, facts, and details in a text.
• Locate specific information within text.
• Make inferences and draw conclusions.
• Make predictions about a text.
• Plan and make judgments about what to include in written products.
• Practice the correct spelling of words.
• Present dramatic interpretations of experiences, stories, poems, or plays.
• Read expository materials to answer questions and locate information.
• Read independently for extended periods of time.
• Recall main ideas, facts, and details from a text.
• Retell written messages by clarifying or summarizing.
• Use capitalization, punctuation, and paragraphs in own writing.
• Use correct word order in sentences.
• Use editing to check and confirm correct use of conventions.
• Use expanded vocabulary to generate synonyms for commonly used words in written and oral communication.
• Use graphic sources of information such as maps.
• Use personal experiences and knowledge to interpret written and oral messages.
• Use resources such as dictionaries and context clues to develop word meaning.
• Use the following parts of the sentence: subject, predicate, and modifier.
• Write structured narratives when given help with organization.
• Write structured narratives when given help with organization. Write structured, informative narratives.
• Write structured, informative narratives.

Social Studies

• Describe human movement in the establishment of settlement patterns.
• Identify and describe attributes of responsible citizenship.
• Identify natural resources and how they are used.

Unit 3: Sound [S]

Science

• Compare results of investigations with what students know about the world.
• Construct reasonable explanations and draw conclusions.
• Demonstrate how sound is produced by vibrating objects and vibrating columns of air.
• Describe how sounds travel through different materials.
• Identify, predict, replicate, and create patterns.
• Observe and describe how sounds are made by using a variety of instruments and other sound-makers, including human vocal cords.
• Observe and record functions of animal parts.
• Plan and conduct simple investigations.
• Sequence organisms, objects, and events.
• Show how altering the size and shape of a variety of instruments can change frequency.
• Show how frequency can be changed by altering the rate of the vibration.
• Show how the human ear detects sound with a membrane that vibrates when sound reaches it.

Unit 3: Who Was Helen Keller? [LA]

Language Arts

• Attend to spelling, mechanics, and format for final products in one's own writing.
• Compare language and oral traditions that reflect different people and customs.
• Compose first drafts.
• Connect and compare information within and across selections (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama) to experience and knowledge.
• Create a readable document.
• Describe concepts and information in own words.
• Develop and use new vocabulary.
• Discuss similarities and differences in events, characters, and concepts within and across texts.
• Discuss the effect of an author's choices for nouns, verbs, modifiers, and specific vocabulary, which help the reader comprehend a narrative or expository text.
• Distinguish fiction from nonfiction.
• Generate ideas for writing by listing key thoughts.
• Increase oral and written vocabulary by listening, discussing, and composing texts when responding to literature that is read and heard.
• Interpret information from diagrams, charts, and maps.
• Locate and use important areas of the library.
• Make predictions about text.
• Plan and make judgments about what to include in written and oral products.
• Pose possible how, why, and what if questions to understand and interpret text.
• Read aloud with fluency and expression any text appropriate for early independent readers.
• Read and comprehend text by locating information for specific purposes.
• Read classic and contemporary work.
• Read expository materials for answers to specific questions.
• Recall main ideas, facts, and details from a text.
• Reread drafts for meaning and revise.
• Respond to stories in ways that reflect understanding through writing, music, drama, and art.
• Use capitalization, punctuation, and paragraphs in own writing.
• Use editing to check for complete sentences and word order.
• Use legible handwriting.
• Use media and technology to enhance the presentation of information to an audience for a specific purpose.
• Use text for a variety of functions including informational.
• Use verbal and nonverbal communication.
• Write structured, informative presentations and narratives when given help with organization.
• Write to communicate with a variety of audiences.