UNIT TEMPLATE
Unit Title: Animals and their young
Content Area/Grade Level(s): 1st Grade Science
Weeks
Implementation Time Frame: 2
Stage 1 Desired Results
Established Goals: 1-LS1-2 Read texts and use media to determine
patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring
survive.
1-LS3-1 Make observations to construct an evidence-based account that
young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents.
Students will learn how animals protect their young. They will also
learn the similarities and differences between young and adults of
various types of animals. They will practice their skills of comparing
and contrasting and remembering and communicating details from read
and orally presented information.
Enduring Understandings:
Humans protect and take care of
their young just like many animal
parents.
Essential Questions: How do
different types of animals take care
of their young? How are the adult
and young of a particular animal
species the same? How are they
different?
Students will be able to compare and contrast the characteristics of
adult animals and their young. They will be able to describe how
certain animal species take care of their young. They will be able to
describe how we are similar and different compared to our parents and
give examples of how adult humans take care of their young.
Stage 2 Assessment Evidence
Performance Task(s):
Other Evidence: How alligators take
care of their young page (details),
discussion on butterflies, elephants,
frogs, orangutans, and penguins with
pictures, Venn diagrams comparing
young and adult forms of animals.
Use all they have learned to choose
an animal and list one way the adult
and baby are alike and one way they
are different.
Stage 3 Learning Plan
Date
2/29/1
63/1/16
3/3/16
Learning Activities:
Reading Groups: "Penguins All Around"
Read story and comment on how the Penguins take care of their young.
(The mother looks for food while the father uses his belly flap to cover
the egg and keep it warm. The mother comes back and they switch
places. The mother and father stay with the baby penguin until it is old
enough to swim on its own.). Students will fill out the story detail and
main idea page to review these details of how they care for their young.
Whole Group Reading: "Busy As a Bee"
Students learn all of the jobs in the hive. On the picture of the bee
eggs,, we stop to discuss how the young bees look compared to the
adult drones, workers, and queen. We continue reading to find out that
the worker bees have the job of protecting the eggs and making sure
the newly hatched bees have enough food. We discuss how the bees
do not look like the adults when they hatch.
3/7/16- Reading Groups: "Go, Gator!" And "Ducklings"
3/11/1 This story is about how alligators survive in the wild. Students are
5
shown that alligators hatch from eggs and look very similar to the
adults except for having yellow stripes down their backs that fade as
they get older. Adult alligators do not sit on the eggs to keep them
warm but sit near them to protect them and avoid crushing them. After
hatching, babies stay with the mother for 2-3 years until they are read
to go out on their own. Students then draw a picture and write a
sentence about how alligators protect their young. Students also read
about duckling in a poem and we take a look at some pictures to find
similarities and differences between adult ducks and their young.
3/11/1
6
Whole Group Reading: Scholastic News: "Spring Weather is for the
Birds"
Students learn how baby birds have different feathers than the adults
and how the adults protect the young from wet and windy spring
weather until their adult, waterproof feathers come in.
3/16/1
6
Whole Group Reading:
Use the attached slides of elephants, orangutans, penguins, butterflies,
swans, and frogs. As a group, take volunteers or pick sticks to find
similarities and differences between adults and babies. Talk about how
the adults take care of their young using the fact sheets attached. For
the butterfly and frog, go through the stages of their development.
(Butterfly: egg, larva, caterpillar, pupa, butterfly. Frog: egg, tadpole,
froglet, frog). Watch the butterfly metamorphosis video on Discovery
Ed. Do young butterflies look like a butterfly when they hatch? What
about frogs? Elephants? Penguins? Orangutans? Swans? Some animals
look just like the adults, some are very close, others look completely
different. The traits that animals have that are like their parents' are
called inherited traits. They get some of their traits from their parents
just like we do. For example, my eyes are same color as my dad's and
my hair is jut like my mom's. What is something you have that is like
your mom or dad? (Give some examples to help).
3/17/1
6
As a group, complete the Venn diagram for elephants (see attached).
The things in the middle will be all of the things that the baby inherited
from the adults. Review how the orangutan takes care of their young.
Complete the corresponding page on their own at their seats (see
attached).
3/18/1
6
To close out the unit have students choose one of the animals we have
talked about. Draw a picture of an adult and a baby. Tell one fact of
how they are alike and one fact of how they are different (see attached
worksheet).
Reflection: Overall the students really enjoyed this unit. They loved
that they could be detectives and find the similarities and differences
on their own. Their favorite and most asked question was "How do the
animals know what to do to take care of the babies? Who taught them
what to do?". I thought this was great and showed that they were
thinking about how people learn how to take care of babies and
applying it to the animals' behaviors. We discussed that no one is
teaching them, they either learn from watching or their brain just knows
what they are supposed to do. They were amazed by this. I feel that
this was a great unit for this age because it didn't require them to be at
a certain reading level to participate and understand the concepts.
They all had knowledge of animals and their young. This unit just
extended that knowledge. As this unit was fit into their district reading
unit the sequence was a bit off. If I were to teach this again I would like
to pay more attention to the sequence rather than just making the
sequence fit with the reading unit.
