National Parks Unit
4th Grade National Parks Unit
A variety of lessons and ideas, integrating Earth Science and the Regions of the United States with my Literacy Workshop.
Day 1: National Park Exploration
Students will get the chance to explore all of the National Parks. My mom found postcards of all 59 National Parks at Walmart that I used & they also have them on Amazon. Once the postcards arrived, I separated them by what region each National Park is found in. Please note that a previous lesson was taught about how the United States is separated into 5 different regions.
Then, the students rotated in groups by observing the pictures and recording what they noticed on the page shown below.
After their observations, we discussed our thoughts as a class and posted them on big chart paper to post in our classroom.
National Park Themed Read Alouds
The next day, I read "The Camping Trip that Changed America: Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir & our National Parks" by Barb Rosenstock
National Park Themed Book Club Books
For our bookclubs, I decided to assign each book club a different National Park.
I tried to assign a National Park for each Region.
We spent the first week, building our schema, researching the National Park and
an important animal or landform that the National Park is known for.
For a couple of my bookclubs, I used books from the "Mysteries in Our National Parks" Series. My students got really into the mysteries of the series and they all take place in a different National Park! My goal is to add the series to my classroom library for the students to read on their own as well.
Another reading group read "I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967". If your students are anything like my students, they LOVE the "I Survived" series and this one is no different! This reading group has some of my more reluctant readers and they ALL got really into the conversations about the book & researching Glacier National Park and Grizzlies. We even read a great article about Glaciers and how they affect the land from Readworks.
With my lower readers, we read the book "High Tide in Hawaii" from the Magic
Tree House Series. Prior to reading this book, we focused on studying Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and volcanoes. I know that the Magic Tree House, has a paired text about Tsunami's and other Natural disasters that would be a great text as well.
Day 1: National Park Exploration
Students will get the chance to explore all of the National Parks. My mom found postcards of all 59 National Parks at Walmart that I used & they also have them on Amazon. Once the postcards arrived, I separated them by what region each National Park is found in. Please note that a previous lesson was taught about how the United States is separated into 5 different regions.
Then, the students rotated in groups by observing the pictures and recording what they noticed on the page shown below.
After their observations, we discussed our thoughts as a class and posted them on big chart paper to post in our classroom.
For a couple of my bookclubs, I used books from the "Mysteries in Our National Parks" Series. My students got really into the mysteries of the series and they all take place in a different National Park! My goal is to add the series to my classroom library for the students to read on their own as well.
National Park Themed Read Alouds
The next day, I read "The Camping Trip that Changed America: Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir & our National Parks" by Barb Rosenstock
National Park Themed Book Club Books
For our bookclubs, I decided to assign each book club a different National Park.
I tried to assign a National Park for each Region.
I tried to assign a National Park for each Region.
We spent the first week, building our schema, researching the National Park and
an important animal or landform that the National Park is known for.
an important animal or landform that the National Park is known for.
For a couple of my bookclubs, I used books from the "Mysteries in Our National Parks" Series. My students got really into the mysteries of the series and they all take place in a different National Park! My goal is to add the series to my classroom library for the students to read on their own as well.
Another reading group read "I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967". If your students are anything like my students, they LOVE the "I Survived" series and this one is no different! This reading group has some of my more reluctant readers and they ALL got really into the conversations about the book & researching Glacier National Park and Grizzlies. We even read a great article about Glaciers and how they affect the land from Readworks.
With my lower readers, we read the book "High Tide in Hawaii" from the Magic
Tree House Series. Prior to reading this book, we focused on studying Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and volcanoes. I know that the Magic Tree House, has a paired text about Tsunami's and other Natural disasters that would be a great text as well.
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