This lesson sequence offers students and teachers a way to explore their individual identities and sense of belonging through analyzing children’s literature and coding with Scratch. Through read-aloud activities and self-differentiated Scratch projects, students learn about the value of inclusion and explore and express ideas about their personal and social identities. Students will describe environments supportive of diversity, and reflect on their own identity as they create expressive projects about their sense of belonging. This sequence is made up of four lessons, though your students may need additional class time to work on their projects.This lesson sequence is part of CodeVA's committment to the U.S. Department of Education "YOU Belong in STEM" initiative.

The student will demonstrate an understanding of the lives of the native people and locate the three American Indian language groups. Fourth grade students are learning about American Indians and the three major language groups spoken in Virginia. These comprehension “mix-ups” are a great way to monitor students’ understanding of the content along with checking reading comprehension.

The students will locate Virginia and its bordering states on maps of the United States.
The students will also locate and identify important water features of Virginia. Fourth grade students are learning about bordering states as well as bodies of water that were important to the early history of Virginia. These comprehension “mix-ups” are a great way to monitor students’ understanding of the content along with checking reading comprehension.

Students will be introduced to computer science words in conjunction with similar standards already taught in English SOLs.  They will see how actions in a plot are similar to events in a code and how cause and effect is similar to events that trigger actions.  Prewriting will take place as they create a plan and codes for an Ozobot maze.