In this lesson students will use the core standards and an academic vocabulary template (adapted from Janet Allen and Robert Marzano) to explicitly learn the academic language they will need to understand, not only in English Language Arts, but in all content areas.

In this lesson students will learn about weather by taking walks in various types conditions: sunny, rainy, windy and snowy.

This "jigsaw" activity will give students the opportunity to work in groups to summarize a 1 to 2 page informational text. It "jigsaws" down to 1 class summary and can be done in 2 or 3 days. This plan was designed for a class of 22 students but can be easily modified by varying group size.

This hands-on activity will help students understand why summer is hotter than winter.

Silent Discussion takes the strengths of a well-managed verbal classroom discussion and moves into a written discussion. Some of the benefits of this move include: all students participate; students practice writing in a low-stakes, social format; and students engage with content skills and knowledge.