ALEX Resources

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (0) 3 :

3 ) Distinguish between living and nonliving things and verify what living things need to survive (e.g., animals needing food, water, and air; plants needing nutrients, water, sunlight, and air).

[SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

[SC2015] (1) 5 :

5 ) Design a solution to a human problem by using materials to imitate how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs (e.g., outerwear imitating animal furs for insulation, gear mimicking tree bark or shells for protection).*

[SC2015] (2) 7 :

7 ) Obtain information from literature and other media to illustrate that there are many different kinds of living things and that they exist in different places on land and in water (e.g., woodland, tundra, desert, rainforest, ocean, river).

[ELA2015] (0) 9 :

9 ) Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding. [RL.K.10]

[ELA2015] (1) 19 :

19 ) With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for Grade 1. [RI.1.10]

[ELA2015] (2) 19 :

19 ) By the end of year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the Grades 2-3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. [RI.2.10]

This is a multi-session interactive lesson plan about animal adaptations for kindergarten through second grade students. The goal of this interactive digital lesson plan is to guide students through activities that help them understand how characteristics such as body covering, body parts, and behaviors help animals survive.  These lesson plans also build cooperation and communication skills for students. There are additional resources provided for the teacher to use before or after using the HyperDoc. 

This Lesson Plan was created in partnership with the Birmingham Zoo.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

[ELA2015] (0) 28 :

28 ) With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers. [W.K.6]

[ELA2015] (0) 30 :

30 ) With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question. [W.K.8]

This lesson will allow students to gather evidence to better understand how plants and animals provide for themselves by altering the environment. Students will observe plants and animals. Students will discuss their findings with group members. The students will write or draw about their findings. After writing with their group members, students will produce and present their knowledge to the class via Chatterpix.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

[ARTS] VISA (0) 1 :

1) Engage in self-directed exploration and imaginative play with art materials.

a. Use motor skills to create two-dimensional art.

Examples: Finger painting, watercolors, paper collage, and rubbings.

b. Use motor skills to create three-dimensional art.

Examples: Rolling, folding, cutting, molding, pinching and pulling clay.

Students will begin by describing how humans change their environment in order to provide for their needs. Students will watch a video clip that explains how several forest animals alter their habitats, and then explain how other animals might change their environment in order to survive. At the conclusion of the lesson, students will create a drawing that illustrates how an animal may alter their environment to provide for its needs.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

[SC2015] (2) 5 :

5 ) Plan and carry out an investigation, using one variable at a time (e.g., water, light, soil, air), to determine the growth needs of plants.

[SC2015] (4) 9 :

9 ) Examine evidence to support an argument that the internal and external structures of plants (e.g., thorns, leaves, stems, roots, colored petals, xylem, phloem) and animals (e.g., heart, stomach, lung, brain, skin) function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.

[SC2015] (4) 13 :

13 ) Plan and carry out investigations to examine properties of soils and soil types (e.g., color, texture, capacity to retain water, ability to support growth of plants).

[SC2015] LSC7 (7) 11 :

11 ) Analyze and interpret data to predict how environmental conditions (e.g., weather, availability of nutrients, location) and genetic factors (e.g., selective breeding of cattle or crops) influence the growth of organisms (e.g., drought decreasing plant growth, adequate supply of nutrients for maintaining normal plant growth, identical plant seeds growing at different rates in different weather conditions, fish growing larger in large ponds than in small ponds).

This resource provides guides and examples to help start your own school garden.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [ELA2015] (0) 10 :

10 ) With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. [RI.K.1]

[ELA2015] (0) 16 :

16 ) With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in which they appear (e.g., what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration depicts). [RI.K.7]

[ELA2015] (0) 19 :

19 ) Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding. [RI.K.10]

[SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

This lesson uses a book called It's Our Garden: From Seeds to Harvest in a School Garden by George Ancona. This book introduces students to a particular school garden that is described in the book. In this book, Ancona shares his fascination with a school garden near his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Over the course of a year, he photographed the students, their friends, teachers, and families as they tended to the garden from seed to harvest. The book itself chronicles how the students planned, carried out, observed, and recorded their work in the garden. Ancona's photo essay is graced with the students' drawings of the plants, the insects that keep the garden thriving, and the wildlife that calls the garden home. The format of this book lends itself nicely to the sequencing activity in this lesson.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [ELA2015] (0) 10 :

10 ) With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. [RI.K.1]

[ELA2015] (0) 16 :

16 ) With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in which they appear (e.g., what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration depicts). [RI.K.7]

[SC2015] (0) 3 :

3 ) Distinguish between living and nonliving things and verify what living things need to survive (e.g., animals needing food, water, and air; plants needing nutrients, water, sunlight, and air).

[SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

This lesson uses a book called Grow! Raise! Catch! How We Get Our Food by Shelley Rotner. This book describes, in general terms, where food comes from. It helps students make connections between people and their environment. After reading the book, students will explore how some plants grow and discover the steps between where food comes from and how it ultimately arrives in the supermarket and on our tables.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (0) 3 :

3 ) Distinguish between living and nonliving things and verify what living things need to survive (e.g., animals needing food, water, and air; plants needing nutrients, water, sunlight, and air).

[SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

This is the first lesson of a two-part series on where food comes from. In this lesson, students learn that most of the food they buy in stores originally comes from farms. Students are gathered together to sing a song about growing crops on a farm and learn from the lyrics the kinds of things that farmers do and need to grow plants well. They learn about the five steps in our food system and discuss its aspects in the context of a story about tomato farming and distribution.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

This lesson is the first of a two-part series on how machines help people grow, package, transport, and store food. This lesson focuses on how “machines improve what people get from crops by helping in planting and harvesting...” Students are introduced to the workings and importance of farm machines and how they help today’s farmers plant, grow, and harvest more and healthier crops for more and more people. Students learn about special types of farm machines and the important tasks they perform on a farm during the growing season.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

This lesson is the second of a two-part series on how machines help people grow, package, transport, and store food. In this lesson, students explore the importance of keeping food fresh by packaging and cooling, and in moving it long distances from where it is grown to where people live. The class reads a story about the transformation that harvested wheat takes before it becomes the bread we consume. Students learn about the kinds of materials and machines that are involved in transporting, processing, packaging, and distributing wheat and wheat flour in their long journey from the farm to our dining room tables.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (0) 3 :

3 ) Distinguish between living and nonliving things and verify what living things need to survive (e.g., animals needing food, water, and air; plants needing nutrients, water, sunlight, and air).

[SC2015] (0) 4 :

4 ) Gather evidence to support how plants and animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation).

In "Butterfly 1: Observing the Life Cycle of a Butterfly", students observe one organism over time and compare its early development (caterpillar) to its later development (butterfly). Students will also compare actual characteristics of a butterfly with a fictional representation of a butterfly. This lesson is the first of two lessons that focus on butterflies and their habitats. The second lesson in this series is "Butterfly 2: A Butterfly's Home".