Unit 4 — Happy Healthy Me
Description
In this unit, students read informational texts and conduct research to understand how to maintain health through exercise, proper nutrition, and rest. They learn about healthy habits and the importance of caring for their bodies.
Essential Questions
- How can I be my healthiest me?
Learning Objectives
- Students will understand the importance of staying healthy
- Students will identify main ideas and supporting details about health
- Students will understand shades of meaning in vocabulary
- Students will ask and answer questions about texts
- Students will decode words with short o, g, k, l, h, w, and j
Suggested Texts
- Being Fit — informational text
- Get Up and Go! — informational text
- Jack and the Hungry Giant — fiction
- Getting Rest — informational text
- Germs Are Not for Sharing — informational text
- Stretch — fiction
- Edible Colors — informational text
- Bed — poetry
Supplemental Resources
- Chart paper for creating word lists and health concept maps
- Highlighters for marking important details in informational texts
- Lined journals for recording health and wellness observations
Language
Speaking and Listening
Writing
Formative Assessments
- Collaborative discussions about health and wellness topics
- Teacher-led small group reading with guided practice on target skills
- Phonological awareness activities with alliteration and rhyming
- Reader's theater performances to practice fluency
Summative Assessment
Module assessment with comprehension and vocabulary tasks
Benchmark Assessment
— not configured —
Alternative Assessment
Students may demonstrate understanding through oral responses to picture-based health questions or by pointing to images that show healthy habits. Visual supports such as picture cards depicting exercise, nutritious foods, and rest may be provided to scaffold responses.
IEP (Individualized Education Program)
During informational text reading and discussions about health and wellness, provide visual supports such as picture cards depicting healthy habits, exercise, and nutrition to help students access key concepts without relying solely on print. Allow students to respond orally or through pointing and gesturing rather than requiring written output, and use dictation to capture their ideas during vocabulary and comprehension tasks. Break phonological awareness practice into small, sequential steps with immediate feedback, and offer additional repetition and multimodal reinforcement when working on target letter-sound correspondences.
Section 504
Ensure preferential seating during whole-group informational text reading and collaborative health discussions to minimize distraction and support focus. Provide extended time during comprehension and vocabulary tasks within the module assessment, and allow oral responses in place of written ones where the task is measuring understanding rather than writing skill.
ELL / MLL
Build background knowledge around the health and wellness content by using pictures, realia, and simple visual displays that connect familiar concepts — such as foods, sleep, and movement — to the vocabulary being introduced in English. Offer simplified, one-step directions during phonological awareness and decoding activities, and encourage students to use their home language to express understanding before transitioning to English responses. Pre-teach key health-related vocabulary with picture support before whole-group reading to give students a stronger foundation for participating in discussions.
At Risk (RTI)
Connect health and wellness content to students' everyday experiences — such as foods they eat or activities they do — to activate prior knowledge and create accessible entry points into informational texts. Provide picture-supported text and guided sentence frames to help students participate in collaborative discussions and express their understanding of main ideas. During phonological awareness and decoding work, offer additional practice with target sounds in a small-group or one-on-one setting, focusing on one concept at a time to build confidence before introducing new skills.
Gifted & Talented
Invite students to go beyond identifying main ideas by exploring the connections between multiple health topics — such as how rest, nutrition, and exercise work together — and encourage them to form and support their own opinions using evidence from informational texts. Challenge students to extend their understanding of vocabulary shades of meaning by comparing related health and wellness words and explaining nuanced differences in meaning or context. Students can also be encouraged to pursue a self-directed inquiry question about a health topic that interests them and share their thinking through drawing, dictation, or oral presentation.