To kick off the unit my partners and I did a mini lesson incorporating a children's literature book titled "Shark Lady" written by Jess Kneating.  With this read aloud my partners and I were able to tie in fractions with sharks and how it is used and in the world. 

MA MATH Curriculum Frameworks (only those used and assessed):

MA.3.MD.B.4. Generate measurement data by measuring lengths of objects using rulers marked with halves and fourths of an inch. Record and show the data by making a line plot (dot plot), where the horizontal scale is marked off in appropriate units—whole numbers, halves, or fourths.

MA ELA Curriculum Frameworks (only those used and assessed):

MA.3.W.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly

MA.3.RI.3. - Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, mathematical ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

MA STE Curriculum Frameworks (only those being assessed): 

3-LS1-1. Use simple graphical representations to show that different types of organisms have unique and diverse life cycles. Describe that all organisms have birth, growth, reproduction, and death in common but there are a variety of ways in which these happen. 

Clarification Statements: 

• Examples can include different ways plants and animals begin (e.g., sprout from a seed, born from an egg), grow (e.g., increase in size and weight, produce a new part), reproduce (e.g., develop seeds, root runners, mate and lay eggs that hatch), and die (e.g., length of life). 

• Plant life cycles should focus on those of flowering plants.

•  Describing variation in organism life cycles should focus on comparisons of the general stages of each, not specifics. 

State Assessment Boundary: 

• Detailed descriptions of any one organism’s cycle, the differences of “complete metamorphosis” and “incomplete metamorphosis,” or details of human reproduction are not expected in state assessment.