Teach Maverick

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 17 (Grade 1 ELA): Explanatory Writing with Labels & Captions

Guide first graders to write and share teaching pages that combine text and visuals. Students learn to use labels, captions, and domain vocabulary to explain real-world topics, showing how pictures and words work together to teach information clearly.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 16 (Grade 1 ELA): Mini-Research – Ask & Answer Questions

Introduce first graders to research through curiosity and discovery. Students learn to ask who/what/where/why/how questions, locate key facts in short texts and visuals, take simple notes, and name their sources—building early research and comprehension skills.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 15 (Grade 1 ELA): Performance Reading & Fluency

Build fluent, expressive reading through poetry performance. First graders practice accuracy, phrasing, and expression across repeated readings—using punctuation, rhythm, and self-corrections—to perform short poems aloud with confidence and clear speaking skills.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 14 (Grade 1 ELA): Poetry Sound & Feeling Words

Engage first graders with poetry that builds sound and meaning awareness. Students explore rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration, identify feeling and sensory words, and read with expressive fluency. They learn how word choice and shades of meaning shape tone and emotion in poems.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 13 (Grade 1 ELA): Informational Structures – Sequence & How-To

Help first graders connect ideas and organize steps with this informational how-to unit. Students practice sequencing with first/next/then, explain cause and effect with because/so, and create labeled visuals that teach—culminating in a shared class how-to project.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 12 (Grade 1 ELA): Organizing & Concluding Opinions

Help first graders strengthen opinion writing with because, and, so linking words and clear closings. Students organize ideas with the Opinion → Reason(s) → Closing frame, revise for flow, and polish sentences with capitals, spaces, and punctuation.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 11 (Grade 1 ELA): Reasons that Support Points

Guide first graders to identify an author’s point and supporting reasons in text and speech. Students listen, question, and write short opinions using text-based evidence—building comprehension, reasoning, and early argument skills aligned with RI.1.8, SL.1.3, and W.1.1.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 10 (Grade 1 ELA): Launching Opinion Writing

Empower first graders to write with voice and purpose in this opinion writing unit. Students learn to state opinions clearly, give strong reasons using because/and, and craft closings that fit—building confidence through speaking, listening, and writing practice.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 9 (Grade 1 ELA): Phonics & Fluency Boost – Short/Long Vowels & Digraphs

Build phonics mastery in Grade 1 with this CVC to CVCe fluency unit—students decode short and long vowels, blend digraphs (sh/ch/th/ck), read high-frequency words, and build prosody for smoother, expressive reading.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 8 (Grade 1 ELA): Informative Writing – All-About Sentences

Boost Grade 1 informational writing with this 1-week unit: teach topic sentences, facts/definitions, and simple closings—plus quick revision and CUPS editing (W.1.2).

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 7 (Grade 1 ELA): Main Topic and Key Details

Help first graders master main topics and supporting details with this interactive unit. Students learn to identify what a page is mostly about, choose fitting details, and deliver clear oral retells using RI.1.2 and SL.1.2 standards.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 6 (Grade 1 ELA): Introducing Nonfiction Text Features

Teach first graders to use headings, captions, and labeled diagrams to locate key facts, answer questions with evidence, and state a page’s key idea—RI.1.5, RI.1.7.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 5 (Grade 1 ELA): Strong Beginnings & Endings in Narratives

Help first graders write engaging stories with strong leads, smooth transitions, and endings that fit. Students learn to hook readers, connect ideas with and, but, so, because, and finish their narratives with satisfying closure.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 4 (Grade 1 ELA): Building a Small-Moment Narrative

Help first graders become confident storytellers with this small-moment writing unit. Students plan clear beginnings, middles, and ends; use temporal words to show sequence; and add sense details for vivid, organized narratives.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 3 (Grade 1 ELA): Characters, Settings, and Major Events

Build comprehension with this first-grade unit on describing characters, settings, and events using both pictures and words. Students learn to identify who, where, and what happened while applying strong vocabulary and clear sentence structure for vivid story retells.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 2 (Grade 1 ELA): Asking & Answering Questions About Stories

Help first graders become confident readers with this “Who, What, Where, When, Why, How” retelling unit. Students practice asking and answering key-detail questions, citing picture or word evidence, and retelling stories with clear beginnings, middles, and ends to build comprehension and fluency.

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Grade 1 ELA Units

Unit Plan 1 (Grade 1 ELA): Launching Our Reading–Writing Community

Kick off first grade literacy with reading and writing routines that build stamina, partner talk, and workshop habits. Students learn book choice, print tracking, and how to share ideas in complete sentences as part of a collaborative classroom community.

Parent Tips

Parent Tips: Repairing Peer Conflicts the Right Way

Learn how to handle peer conflicts with restorative practices that build empathy, accountability, and repair. This parent–teacher guide includes scripts, repair menus, and tracking tools to replace punishment with meaningful restoration.

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Grade 2 ELA Units

Unit Plan 36 (Grade 2 ELA): Publishing Celebration & Reflection

Second graders celebrate writing by curating a polished portfolio, revising with language for effect, and delivering a 1-minute author share using visuals. They publish digitally or in print, speak clearly in complete sentences, and reflect on their growth as writers.

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Grade 2 ELA Units

Unit Plan 35 (Grade 2 ELA): Author Study – Voices & Point of View

Second graders explore point of view and author’s choices by identifying who tells the story, using character voices for dialogue, and comparing two versions of the same tale. They analyze how narration changes tone, meaning, and reader understanding.

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Grade 2 ELA Units

Unit Plan 34 (Grade 2 ELA): Revising & Editing for Clarity

Week-long Grade 2 ELA unit on grammar, capitalization, punctuation, contractions/possessives, and spelling patterns—using ARMS & CUPS to revise, edit, and publish a polished paragraph.

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Grade 2 ELA Units

Unit Plan 33 (Grade 2 ELA): Summarizing & Retelling Key Ideas

Second graders learn to find a text’s main topic and key details, then create oral and visual summaries that show understanding. They listen, identify big ideas, and write 2–3 sentence summaries that clearly answer a question in their own words.

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Grade 2 ELA Units

Unit Plan 32 (Grade 2 ELA): Writing Information Booklets with Text Features

Grade 2 informational writing unit: students craft a multi-page booklet with TOC, headings, facts, diagrams + labels, captions, and a mini glossary. CCSS W.2.2, RI.2.5, L.2.6.

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Grade 2 ELA Units

Unit Plan 31 (Grade 2 ELA): Shared Research Project

Second graders become curious researchers, learning how to plan focused questions, gather facts from books and safe web pages, and take simple notes in their own words. With teacher guidance, they publish a collaborative digital project that shows what they discovered together.

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Grade 2 ELA Units

Unit Plan 30 (Grade 2 ELA): Reading Science/Social Studies with Visuals

Second graders learn how diagrams, maps, and charts work together with text to explain ideas in science and social studies. They use visual clues and glossaries to figure out domain-specific words and recount key details from talks or videos that include visuals.