Unit 9 — Grow, Plants, Grow!
Description
Students explore plant growth, life cycles, and needs through literature, poetry, and informational texts. They describe characters and events in stories, identify text organization, and understand connections between information. Writing focuses on informative/explanatory descriptive essays about plants. Phonics instruction covers r-controlled vowels or, ore, er, ir, ur and final blends ng, nk. Students learn inflections and explore elements of poetry. Academic vocabulary includes absorb, emerge, and vegetation. The unit emphasizes understanding growth processes and plant adaptations.
Essential Questions
- What do plants need to live and grow?
Learning Objectives
- Describe characters, settings, and major events in stories using key details.
- Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to senses.
- Describe connections between individuals, events, ideas, or information in texts.
- Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills.
- Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.
- Write informative/explanatory texts naming a topic and supplying facts.
- Use common, proper, and possessive nouns.
- Use frequently occurring adjectives.
- Use end punctuation for sentences.
- Spell untaught words phonetically drawing on phonemic awareness.
Suggested Texts
- Plant Pairs — poetry (week 1)
- If I Were a Tree — poetry (week 1)
- So You Want to Grow a Taco — procedural text (week 1)
- The Curious Garden — fantasy (week 2)
- Which Part Do We Eat? — poetry (week 2)
- The Talking Vegetables — folktale (week 2)
- Amazing Plant Bodies — informational text (week 3)
- Yum! ¡MmMm! ¡Qué rico!: Americas' Sproutings — poetry (week 3)
- A Year in the Garden — video (week 4)
Supplemental Resources
- Printed word lists for r-controlled vowels (or, ore, er, ir, ur) and final blends (ng, nk)
- Graphic organizers for descriptive essays with plant name, parts, and needs
- Index cards for rhyming and poetry word activities
- Printed images or photographs of plants at different growth stages
- Chart paper for recording plant vocabulary and life cycle stages
Language
Reading: Informational Text
Reading: Literature
Writing
Students in Unit 3 investigate animal adaptations and characteristics through reading and research. They use informational texts to learn how animals' bodies help them survive and make connections between animal features and human solutions through biomimicry activities.
Students examine plants, growth cycles, and gardening through narrative nonfiction and informational texts in Unit 9. They read about seeds, plant life cycles, and cultivation to develop scientific understanding of how plants grow and meet their needs.
Formative Assessments
- Elements of poetry analysis with rhyme and imagery
- Text organization and topic identification activities
- Monitor and clarify understanding of plant growth processes
- Response to text: write descriptions and haikus
- Writing conferences during descriptive essay drafting
Summative Assessment
End of Unit Assessment; Descriptive essay about plants
Benchmark Assessment
— not configured —
Alternative Assessment
Students may demonstrate understanding through oral descriptions of plant characters and events from stories, with teacher support using visual aids or sentence frames. Written responses may be shortened or replaced with picture-based explanations paired with dictated or scribed sentences.
IEP (Individualized Education Program)
During phonics instruction on r-controlled vowels and final blends, provide visual word cards with picture support and allow students to respond orally or through gesture when identifying sounds in words. For the informative descriptive essay about plants, offer dictation support or allow students to narrate their facts while a teacher or aide scribes, reducing the handwriting demand while maintaining the writing purpose. Break multi-step tasks—such as moving from observing plant details to organizing and recording facts—into small, numbered steps with a visual checklist. Highlight key vocabulary such as absorb, emerge, and vegetation in any reference materials students use during reading and writing activities.
Section 504
Provide preferential seating during whole-group phonics instruction and read-alouds about plant life cycles to minimize distraction and support auditory focus. Allow extended time during the descriptive essay drafting process and any phonics decoding activities so students can work at a comfortable pace without pressure. Ensure that printed directions for writing tasks and text-response activities are available to students who benefit from a visual reference alongside oral instructions.
ELL / MLL
Support understanding of unit vocabulary—absorb, emerge, and vegetation—with picture cards, simple diagrams of plant parts and life cycle stages, and brief demonstrations that make word meanings visible and concrete. When giving directions for writing or reading response tasks, use simple and direct language and check comprehension by asking students to restate the task in their own words before beginning. Encourage students to draw and label plant-related observations in their home language first as a bridge to English explanations, and use illustrated informational texts alongside core readings to build background knowledge about plant growth.
At Risk (RTI)
Connect plant growth concepts to students' everyday experiences—such as foods they eat or plants they have seen—to activate prior knowledge before introducing new vocabulary and text content. During phonics practice with r-controlled vowels and blends, offer additional repetition with hands-on word-building tools and focus on a reduced set of high-priority words to build confidence before expanding. For the descriptive essay, provide a simple graphic organizer with picture prompts that helps students identify one plant topic and two or three supporting facts, offering a manageable entry point into informative writing.
Gifted & Talented
Invite students to go beyond basic plant description by exploring how specific adaptations help plants survive in different environments, connecting informational reading to deeper cause-and-effect thinking. In their descriptive essay, encourage students to incorporate sensory language and precise adjectives that reflect the imagery work done through poetry, aiming for more sophisticated elaboration rather than simply adding length. Students may also explore how the structure and word choice in poetry about nature differs from informational text, analyzing how authors make deliberate craft decisions to convey meaning about the natural world.