Students explore the beauties of winter through a variety of texts about winter, learning about winter weather and weather forecasts and how different animals and plants survive winter.
As part of the upgrade to Fishtank Plus, this unit was revised in December 2020. Some texts, materials, and questions may have changed as part of the revision. If you are looking for the 2019 version of this unit, visit our archives.
In this unit, students explore the beauties of winter. In the first part of the unit, students learn about how snow forms and the different types of snow that fall in the winter. In the second part of the unit, students explore how animals survive in the winter and the ways in which animals meet their basic needs, even when the ground is covered with ice and snow. In the last part of the unit, students read a variety of Jan Brett texts and use what they have learned about snow and animals to make inferences about what is happening with the different winter animals in the text. By the end of the unit, students should have a strong grasp of what makes winter unique and the different ways animals survive in the winter. Due to the timing of this unit, it is our hope that students will have plenty of opportunities to interact with the vocabulary and content in the natural world around them.
In reading, this unit is predominantly a collection of informational texts and builds on skills and strategies from earlier units. At this point, it is assumed that students are inquisitive consumers of text and are able to ask and answer questions about a text in order to deepen understanding of the content. In this unit, students will continue to be challenged to identify the main topic of a text, retell the key details that connect to the main topic, describe the connection between ideas in a text, and use the illustrations and words to describe and retell what is happening in a text with varying levels of teacher support.
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Book: It’s Snowing! by Gail Gibbons (Holiday House, 2012) — AD790L
Book: The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder by Mark Cassino (Chronicle Books, 2009)
Book: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (Viking, 1962)
Book: Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner (Chronicle Books, 2014) — AD600L
Book: Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft (HarperCollins, 1996) — AD480L
Book: Big Tracks, Little Tracks: Following Animal Prints by Millicent E. Selsam (HarperCollins, 1998) — AD490L
Book: Wild Tracks! A Guide to Nature’s Footprints by Jim Arnosky (Sterling Children’s Books, 2015)
Book: The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader (Aladdin; Reprint edition, 1993) — AD710L
Book: Tracks in the Snow by Wong Herbert Yee (Square Fish; First edition, 2007) — AD440L
Book: The Mitten by Jan Brett (G.P. Putman’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 1996) — 600L
Book: The Hat by Jan Brett (G.P. Putman’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 1997) — 540L
Book: Annie and the Wild Animals by Jan Brett (G.P. Putman’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 2012) — 490L
See Text Selection Rationale
This assessment accompanies this unit and should be given on the suggested assessment day or after completing the unit.
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In this unit, students continue to work on producing complete sentences orally and in writing. Students review how to ask questions and learn how to use exclamations.
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beautiful blizzard cozy curious droplet embarrassed evaporate hibernate meteorologist migrate over ridiculous search sleet snowstorm snow flurry store tame track under wild
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RI.K.1
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.1.d
L.K.2.b
Brainstorm two or three questions about winter.
It’s Snowing! pp. 1 – 12
RI.K.3
RI.K.7
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.6
Explain how snowflakes are formed.
Story of Snow
RI.K.3
RI.K.7
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.6
Describe what snow crystals look like.
It’s Snowing! pp. 16 – 32
RI.K.3
RI.K.4
RI.K.7
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.6
Describe one way that snow falls.
The Snowy Day
RL.K.2
RL.K.3
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
Explain what adventures Peter had in the snow and how they made him feel.
Discussion & Writing
W.K.2
W.K.5
W.K.8
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.1.f
Describe what makes winter beautiful.
Animals in Winter
RI.K.3
RI.K.4
RI.K.7
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.6
Explain how different animals survive the winter using the words “migrate,” “hibernate,” “gather,” and “store,” and “search.”
The Big Snow pp. 1 – 26
RI.K.3
RI.K.4
RI.K.7
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.6
Describe how different animals prepare for winter using the words “migrate,” “hibernate,” “gather” and “store,” and “search.”
The Big Snow p. 26 — to end
RI.K.3
RI.K.7
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.6
Explain how the animals survived the big snow.
Over and Under...
RI.K.3
RI.K.7
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.6
Describe how being over or under the snow helps animals survive the winter.
Big Tracks...
RI.K.3
RI.K.7
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.6
Explain why animal tracks are easier to see in the winter and what stories animal tracks tell.
Wild Tracks! pp. 11 – 13
RI.K.3
RI.K.7
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.6
Describe different types of animal tracks and what you can learn from them.
Tracks in the Snow
RL.K.2
RL.K.3
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
Retell what happens when the little girl follows the tracks in the snow.
Discussion & Writing
W.K.2
W.K.5
W.K.8
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
L.K.1.f
Explain what animals do during the winter.
The Mitten
RL.K.2
RL.K.3
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
Explain if the story could happen in real life.
The Hat
RL.K.2
RL.K.3
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
Explain how Hedgehog’s feelings about the hat changed from the beginning of the story to the end.
Annie and...
RL.K.2
RL.K.3
SL.K.1
SL.K.6
Retell what happens in Annie and the Wild Animals.
Assessment
3 days
Writing
W.K.3
W.K.5
W.K.6
L.K.1.b
L.K.1.f
L.K.5.d
Write a story about what happens when you follow some animal tracks.
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