Unit Overview: Read more about the unit and find all unit materials here on the Fishtank website

In this science-based unit, students begin to build respect for and understanding of living things by studying the life cycles of different plants and animals. Students continue their exploration of seasons by learning what makes spring the season of growth and the different characteristics of living, nonliving, and dead things. Students observe and learn about plants and what seeds need in order to grow into a plant,the process in which tadpoles turn into frogs and caterpillars transform into butterflies, and how birds grow and change inside of an egg. Throughout the unit, students should be challenged to think critically about how the life cycles of plants and animals are similar and different, and what all living things need in order to thrive and survive.

Students continue to use all of the strategies learned in previous units to understand an informational or literary text. Students build on those understandings by noticing the sequence of events, particularly in informational texts. Because students read a variety of texts on the same topic, students also begin to think about the ways in which texts on the same topic can be similar and different. 

Students continue to build writing fluency by writing daily in response to the Target Task. Additionally, throughout the unit students engage in both narrative and informational writing, By this point in the year, students should be using a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing, with more of an emphasis on drawing and writing. 

Unit Calendar:

Unit 7 is 30 instructional days. It is recommended to run from April 6th - May 22nd.