A 3rd-grade lesson focused on identifying the main idea and supporting details using a 'Main Idea Mountain' theme. Students practice the 'first read' of complex texts before chunking paragraphs to summarize and find the 'big picture'.

A 4-day morning work series focusing on multiplication/division word problems and comparing/contrasting informational texts about animals.

A lesson focusing on the vowel teams 'ai' and 'ay' for the long /a/ sound, following the SPIRE Level 3 progression. Students will practice identifying, reading, and spelling words with these patterns through guided instruction and independent practice.

A formal assessment of 3.RL.2 skills using multiple-choice questions over a new folktale.

Applying recounting and moral-finding skills to a West African folktale, 'Anansi and the Pot of Wisdom'.

Analyzing how key details lead to the moral in 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'.

Focus on recounting the sequence of events and identifying the central message in 'The Lion and the Mouse'.

A cumulative assessment where students apply all their 'Desert Detective' skills—literal details, 'how and why' explanations, and citing specific sentence evidence—to solve a final mystery.

A vibrant retelling of the classic Jamaican folktale explaining why Anansi the spider has a thin waist, designed for 2nd-grade performance and comprehension.

Students master the skill of identifying the specific sentence or phrase that proves an answer in a mystery set at Painted Rock.

Students tackle 'how and why' questions, learning to link character actions to specific text evidence in a story about a mysterious cactus.

Students practice answering literal 'who, what, where, and when' questions by citing evidence from a story about a lost canteen.

A final capstone lesson where students choose their own object or picture to describe and write about.