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.
Focus: Rhythm, rhyme, alliteration; meaning of words/phrases; shades of meaning
Grade Level: 1
Subject Area: English Language Arts (Reading Literature • Foundational Skills • Language)
Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 45–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
Poetry plays with sounds and feelings. This week, students listen for rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration, notice words and phrases that show feelings or appeal to the senses, and practice fluency—reading poems with phrasing and expression. They will also explore shades of meaning (stronger/weaker verbs and adjectives) and act them out to understand tone in poems.
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to…
- Identify words/phrases in poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses (RL.1.4).
- Read short poems and rhyme lines with accuracy, phrasing, and expression; self-correct when something sounds wrong (RF.1.4b–c).
- Distinguish shades of meaning among related verbs and adjectives and choose words to match a poem’s tone (L.1.5d).
Standards Alignment — CCSS Grade 1
- RL.1.4 Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.
- RF.1.4b–c Read on-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings; use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding.
- L.1.5d Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs differing in manner and adjectives differing in intensity by defining or choosing them or by acting out the meanings.
Success Criteria — student language
- I can find and underline rhyme and alliteration in a poem.
- I can point to a feeling/sensory word and tell what it shows (e.g., hush = quiet sound).
- I can read a poem in phrases with expression and fix mistakes.
- I can sort words by strength (e.g., walk → march; cold → freezing) and pick the best one for a line.