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THE BIRCHWOOD
LEARNING CENTER |
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Curriculum
On this page, you will find information about common curriculum adaptations for special needs students. The information is organized according to topics within a grade level. Find activities and materials that you could use with your student to teach, reinforce or practice content area information.
Grade 3:
Folk tales and fables ...Butterflies....Penguins....
Folk Tales and Fables:
Read to your student. Read assorted fables and fairy tales, discussing the main idea, lesson or moral of the story. Once you have experienced a number of stories, you can share different versions of a fairy tale or fable.
Here is a small sampling of the many adaptations of beloved tales:
Cinderella
Dinorella by Pamela Duncan Edwards and Henry Cole
The Three Little Pigs:
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka
Goldilocks and the Three Bears:
Goldilocks and the Three Bears retold and illustrated by Jan Brett
(beautifully illustrated version)
Wili Wai Kula and the Three Mongooses by Donviee Martin Laird
(an Hawaiian version)
Deep in the Forest by Brinton Turkle (a wordless version)
The Little Red Hen:
Manana, Iguana by Ann Whitford Paul
Little Red Riding Hood:
Lon Po Po by Ed Young
The Boy Who Cried Wolf:
Betsy Who Cried Wolf by Gail Carson Levine
Sleeping Beauty:
Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen
Rapunzel:
Falling for Rapunzel by Leah Wilcox (an amusing version based on
misunderstanding words)
I would also recommend choosing stories from a collection of Aesop's Fables, such as the one written by
Jerry Pinkney. Read a selection to your child and ask him/her to tell you the lesson or moral of the story.
Butterflies:
Read about different kinds of butterflies,noting similarities and 
differences.
Have children identify their favorites and give specific reasons.
One book I like to share with students is entitled, The Butterfly Birthday.
Penguins:
Again, reading about and discussing the various types of penguins is a valuable activity that helps students notice details, classify information, and support general statements with specific information. It also helps develop their skills in comparing and contrasting.
There are many books about penguins at various reading levels.
Some of the simpler books include
Plenty of Penguins by Sonia W. Black My Pet Penguin
Students studied cloud types and learned about different kinds of storms. There are many books available on this topic. If your child enjoys non-fiction, you can refer to a series of books by Ann and Jim Merk. The series is entitled, Weather Report, with specific titles such as Storms, Weather Signs, and Rain, Snow and Ice. There are also many books that tell stories of children's adventures in storms such as One Lucky Girl by George Ella Lyon and Twisters, by Kate Hayden.
You can help your child become aware of different types of weather by keeping a chart, either in graph form or by using a monthly calendar.
And, of course, students love to conduct simple science experiments and the study of weather provides a perfect opportunity. Here is one simple experiment you can do right at home:
Early in the day, following a rain shower, take your child out to the driveway. Locate a small puddle and draw a line around it, using sidewalk chalk. If you wish, use different colors to circle different-sized puddles. Ask your child to predict what will happen to the puddle(s) as the day progresses. Later in the day, after the sun has been out for a few hours, return to the driveway and observe how the puddle has changed. Ask your child how it changed and what happened to the water. Ask why some puddles changed more than others. (Adapted from "A Pocketful of Science, by Ann Flagg, "The Mailbox, Primary," April/May
1994)
I found a few websites that offered information and/or interactive games and interesting activities. Click on the site below that you wish to visit.
Grade 4:
Native Americans... Explorers... Dutch Settlement in New York...Immigration
Due to the great amount of social studies content covered in fourth grade, I generally present reading instruction connected to the curriculum areas studied in the classroom.
Native Americans:
We read a number of Native American legends. This helps to understand the lives of the Native People. We read different versions of stories, looking to find out what the story explains. We compare stories, noting common trends (for example, the frequent use of ravens and crows). We compare legends to the fables and folk tales studied in third grade.
There are some wonderful collections of stories such as
A Twist in the Tail by Mary Hoffman
In a Circle Long Ago by Nancy Van Laan
Some of my favorite legends are
Rainbow Crow retold by Nancy Van Laan
The Story of Jumping Mouse retold and illustrated by John Steptoe
The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush retold and illustrated by Tomie de Paola
The Learning Center program also supports the content in the Native American unit by reading books such as :
Small Wolf by Nathaniel Benchley- an "I Can Read Book" with a powerful message
Little Runner of the Longhouse by Betty Baker- another simple read about the life of a young Iroquois boy
A Mare for Young Wolf by Janice Stefelman- one of a series of "Step Into Reading Books"
Buffalo Before Breakfast by Mary Pope Osborne about the Lakota tribe
Children of the Wind and Water by Stephen Krensky- a collection of stories about Native American children
Children of the Earth and Sky by Stephen Krensky (another collection)
People of the Longhouse- by Jillian & Robin Ridington- information about the Iroquois, broken into categories.
(Books read each year vary with the skills and needs of the students in the program.)
Explorers:
We read various articles about explorers beginning with Leif Ericsson and ending with Henry Hudson. This is a particularly good unit for developing note-taking and study skills. We usually fill out a chart about the various explorers and then create study cards.
Dutch Settlement of New York:
Typically, we read the story of Rip Van Winkle as a bridge between the colonial life of the Dutch and establishment of New York.
Immigration:
There are a number of books we use to support this topic. One of my favorites is entitled, Coming to America, by Betsy and Giulio Maestro.
This book tells the story of immigration, beginning with the first Americans who crossed the land bridge from Asia to Alaska. It moves through the centuries and focuses on the immigrants going through
Ellis Island. 
We also read several books about the Statue of Liberty, and sometimes have time to create our own booklets about symbols of America.
Grade 5:
United States Government... Latin America... States of the Union... Going West
Government:
The year typically begins with the study of US Government. We use the text, We the People as our main source of information. We work on the use of text structures such as chapter titles, headings, and captions to aid in comprehending the material. Focus is placed on using text structures to answer specific questions and developing vocabulary related to the unit. We often read biographies about famous Americans from that period in history such as Benjamin Franklin , Paul Revere, Betsy Ross.
Throughout your child's study of government, be sure to ask him/her what she knows about the different terms and topics. You'll be amazed at how much information your child is learning.
Latin America:
Work on this unit begins with using maps to locate Latin America. A variety of reading activities follow, including reading fiction and non-fiction pieces about Mexico, such as the stories "Mexico's Mysterious Lost City" and Chiapas. We include some folk tales and fables, such as the Latin version of The Little Red Hen, entitled, Manana, Iguana. Since this unit is often covered around the time of the winter holidays, we enjoy reading a story called, Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. This is a story about a Mexican family's Christmas celebration and the trouble one little girl finds herself in. Work on categorizing information and relating main ideas to details are important skills covered in this unit.
We move back to the USA to study the states....
We work on learning facts about the 50 states by reading a one-page article about each state and completing a related worksheet. We shade in each state on a map of the US to help learn its location in the country. The emphasis, however, is placed on reading short books that take us around the country from Maine to Hawaii. We focus on previewing the texts, determining whether each book is fiction or non-fiction. We examine how each book is organized as a key to comprehending the text. Various types of note-taking sheets are used, depending on the organization of the text, and extended written responses are completed for each book.
Some titles are:
Apple Cider Days A Walk Through a Salt Marsh Alone in the Arctic Turtles of the Sea
Our final unit is Going West:
Work on this unit often includes reading and summarizing picture books about Westward Expansion, learning and reporting about famous people of the West such as Sacajawea, Annie Oakley, and Jesse James, and reading Pioneer Cat, a story about a girl's adventure on a wagon train. The students write journal entries from the point of view of the main character and use chapter titles to organize information into summary form. As the pioneers often created quilts to tell of their journeys, we create an ABC quilt to record information learned about the unit.
"A teacher can lead you to the door; but learning is up to you."
Chinese Proverb
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