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.

Teachers will be able to use this lesson virtually or in-person! This Google Slide deck lesson can also be downloaded as a PowerPoint! Speaker notes are included which make it easy for teachers or substitutes to teach this lesson!Literacy Standards: 4.5 a, b, c, f & jScience Standards: 4.3 a & b 4.8 a, b, c & dSocial Studies Standards: VS.9 a VS.10 b & c Authors: Melissa DiAscro, Rebecca Fausett, Annie Schmidt, Lindsey Bruce, & Kari Nugent(Hampton Oaks Elementary School) 

This is a planet themed graphic organizer. This organizer will pair well with any space themed passage in which the students are expected to summarize. Also includes text snippets for modeling and gudided practice for the teacher to show how to look for a "who" and "what" in a passage.

English Instructional Plan – Story Elements and Plot Grades 4-5  Integrated Strand/s: Communication and Multimodal Literacies

This lesson sequence offers students and teachers a way to explore gender and cultural identity through analyzing children’s literature and coding with Scratch, specifically exploring the importance of names to our identities. Through read-aloud activities and self-differentiated Scratch projects, students learn about the importance of names in reference to both gender and culture, and have a chance to explore and express ideas about their own names, brainstorm creating school environments supportive of diversity, and reflect on their own bravery and resilience. This sequence is broken into seven 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. 

I created this activity to introduce my students to write a well-rounded summary for a piece of fiction writing.  Every year I see students struggling with how to correctly write a summary. I begin this lesson as a whole group activity then transition the lesson into small groups. I begin the summary practice by teaching my students to use an SWBST graphic organizer. They find that it’s much easier than they originally thought to write a well-organized summary. This activity provides practice for SOLs 4.5d and 4.6e.