ELA Monthly Pacing Guide: April/May/June
Big Ideas: Living Things Grow and Change. Change Can Be Observed.
Domain: Physical Development & The Mechanics of Writing, Print Concepts.
Children will draw, talk and write labels, create signs, engage in observational drawing, and write stories.
Teachers will support children in locating resources (word cards, books, etc.) and sounding out words they wish to write.
Some Big Ideas are:
- Animals are living things and some grow in an egg (living versus non-living).
- Birds have feathers and they can fly? (Some birds can’t fly)-why?)
In an investigation on birds we recommend the project approach, which has three phases:
Phase 1: Finding out through first hand experiences what children already know so they can develop a road map for the investigation. This can include discussions about the characteristic of birds, how they communicate, and where they live. Below are examples of children drawing and labeling birds and a dictated bird story.
Parts of a bird anchor chart.
Labeling a drawing of a parrot.
Math Big Ideas: Counting, adding and subitizing.
Math Places Scenes: Teachers found and printed beautiful images related to the Big Idea along with dice, and birds, gems, and sticks for children to add to the scene. Then they photographed the child’s collection and asked children to tell the story of their scene. This is what one child said:
“One bird had a lot of eggs. He couldn’t handle it so he gave all of them to the blue jay and the agent and the yellow beaky bird. The rest was for him. He kept 4 for himself. That’s how many he could handle.”
