This module is meant to be taught as a stand-alone or in conjunction with the Colorado Department of Education Instructional Unit Sample for First Grade Reading, Writing, and Communicating entitled, "Transformations Around Me", drawing on knowledge gained from the unit's Learning Experience #2, which establishes foundational understanding for the rest of the unit. This unit can be found at: https://www.cde.state.co.us/standardsandinstruction/instructionalunits-1...
Unit Description: This unit centers around the attributes of physical communities and the adaptations that people make in order to be successful in particular environments. During the 6-8 weeks of the unit, students will examine their own physical community. They will respond to text and images and construct short written pieces for different purposes/audiences (including letters to pen pals, newspaper “articles,” etc.) documenting changes that occur and adaptations people make across seasons. The learning experiences build to a performance assessment that asks students to write (and create videos) about an adaptation, in the form of a favorite activity, they make in a particular season.
This module focuses on the second performance task: "The teacher may utilize informational texts and images of rural and urban areas so that students can create a working and shared definition of the physical aspects of a (rural) community".
