What good looks like, one excerpt at a time.

Guiding questions

How does a story change when the storyteller changes, and what does that reveal about the people and communities around us?

• What is point of view, and how does an author choose who tells a story?
• How does the same event look different depending on who is experiencing it?
• Who are the people who keep our city running, and what stories do they carry?

+ 2 more in the full excerpt

Inquiry Centers · Week 1, Monday · 60 min

• Sound Scientist Station: an experimental area where students create and record unique sounds, analyze their characteristics, and document discoveries in listening journals.
• Musical Invention Station: design and construct simple instruments using found objects, exploring how different materials create varied sounds.
• Sound Mystery Challenge (from Morning Meeting): the teacher plays sounds without visual cues and students guess what makes each one unique, building listening skills and curiosity.

A full day: firefighters and fire safety · Week 1, Thursday

Key question: what do firefighters need to do their job?

• Morning Meeting (20 min): read George and the Firefighters by Margret Rey.
• Literacy (20 min): talk about what questions the class can ask the firefighter when they come to speak. What is the difference between a question and a comment? Write a list of what the children want to know about being a firefighter.
• Math (40 min): each child copies their home phone number and address, and 911. Talk about how these are important numbers to know in case of an emergency.

+ 2 more in the full excerpt

What is a map? · Week 3, Wednesday

Key question: how do mail carriers know where to go?

• Morning Meeting (20 min): read Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney and recite the class's mail carrier poem.
• Literacy (40 min): a cardboard box turned into mail slots, one per child. They write notes to friends and put them in each other's mailboxes.
• Math (40 min): sorting mail by numbers. Number paper mailboxes 1 to 10; children match index cards with dots or numerals to the right mailbox and deliver the mail.

+ 2 more in the full excerpt

How could we clean up an oil spill? · Week 6, Wednesday

Daily big idea: there is more than one way to solve a problem. The class already wrote its shared problem statement: the problem is ___; a good cleanup needs to ___.

• Literacy (15 min): revisit the 'what we know about the problem' chart and reference images of real cleanup tools: booms that corral oil, skimmers that lift it, sorbents that soak it up.
• Math (15 min): finalize the fair test. How exactly will we judge which method works better? Count droppers of oil removed, rate the water 1 to 3 for clearness, or compare how clean the feather looks.
• Inquiry Centers (25 min): each group sketches two cleanup approaches, labels how each is meant to work, and gathers materials from the supply table: cotton balls, sponges, spoons, string, a drop of dish soap, paper towels, mesh.

+ 1 more in the full excerpt

What did I used to think about the ocean, and what do I think now? · Week 7, Monday

• Morning Meeting (10 min): begin with wave breathing, slower and longer today to match the reflective mood. 'We have been breathing like the ocean for seven weeks. Today we look back at how much our thinking has grown.' Gather at the Week 1 Wonder Wall and flag the wonders the class can now answer.
• Literacy (20 min): learners revisit their own Ocean Journal from Week 1 and write a reflection using the frame: I used to think ___, but now I know ___.
• Math (10 min): revisit the arc's own data (the Week 2 line plot, a Week 4 depth comparison, the Week 6 test results) and read it with fresh eyes: what did this show?

+ 2 more in the full excerpt

Morning Meeting: wave breathing before a hard topic · Week 6, Monday · 10 min

Open with three wave breaths. Breathe in slowly through the nose as the wave gathers and rolls toward shore, pause as the wave crests, breathe out as it falls back. Then reconnect it to what has changed: 'This is the ocean we have been getting to know, and this week we learn about how people can hurt it. Some of that can feel heavy. Breathing like the ocean helps us stay steady while we think about hard things.'

• Gather at last week's food web with a plastic bag, or a photograph of ocean plastic.
• Literacy follows with Somebody Swallowed Stanley by Sarah Roberts, chosen because it shows real harm without frightening: gentle, rhyming, and it resolves. Chart the chain of cause and effect as you read.

Performance task: Raising money for a cause · Engage & Serve, final week

Children decide what community organization they want to help, then raise money or food for it. They make the signs and flyers for their fundraiser and count the money.

• Assessment: observation during play, children dictating what they have learned, student reflection, developmental checklist.
• Rationale: a culminating activity that gives the children an opportunity to contribute and feel engaged in being community helpers themselves.

Recognize & Act · Weeks 2-3

Field trips and guest speakers: firefighters, police officers, a nurse, a doctor. Children choose what they want to turn dramatic play into: a police station, a doctor's office, or a fire station.

• Explore the tools community helpers use in their jobs and look at the places they work.
• Books, poems, and songs about community helpers carry over from the Reflect & Learn weeks: doctors, nurses, veterinarians, police officers, firefighters, mail carriers, food banks.

Arc overview

Primary question: how are forests connected, and what hidden relationships allow a Colorado forest to thrive?

• Reflect & Learn (4-6 weeks): learning about Colorado forests through field trips, guest speakers, reading, and formal lessons.
• Care & Connect: a culminating information share for families and other students, with each student or pair researching one relationship.
• Recognize & Act: something tangible the students can do to care for and help forests.

+ 1 more in the full excerpt

Recognize & Act · Weeks 3-5, primary focus

Students move from observation into active investigation. They research how note values function as fractions of a whole measure and conduct rhythm experiments of their own.

• Fraction-to-note-value mapping: students create visual charts showing how whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes relate to a measure.
• Rhythm equation challenges: students solve 'fill the measure' puzzles, choosing note combinations that sum to exactly one measure.
• Score analysis: students examine simplified sheet-music excerpts, identify time signatures, and count beats per measure.

Inquiry Centers · Week 1, Monday · 30 min

• Fossil Dig Sensory Bin: a large bin of kinetic sand with hidden plastic dinosaur bones. Students use brushes and small tools to excavate and discuss their discoveries.
• Dinosaur Classification Area: dinosaur models and picture cards. Students sort by observable characteristics: number of legs, body shape, likely diet.
• From Math earlier in the day: tape-measure outlines of different dinosaurs on the floor, compared with familiar objects to understand scale.

Morning Meeting and Enrichment · Week 1, Monday · 60 min

• Circle time sky observation: children share what they already know about the sky.
• Interactive storytelling that introduces the theme: looking up and wondering.
• Enrichment: a group mural of the night sky with collaborative star placement, then a movement activity simulating zero-gravity exploration.

Care & Connect · All 12 weeks

Arrival and provocations, then Morning Meeting.

• Greetings, community building, songs and movement, sharing observations and wonderings.
• Outdoor education and working in the garden's raised beds.
• Reflect & Learn: students are introduced to new concepts and given the opportunity to explore, and the teacher is allowed time to observe and document.

Performance task: a dual-perspective narrative · Engage & Serve, weeks 6-8

Students select a community worker they have researched (a sanitation worker, a firefighter, a bus driver) and write two short narrative accounts of the same event: one in the worker's first-person voice, one from a third-person narrator watching from outside.

• Revision and editing workshop applying the craft and conventions taught across the arc.
• Class anthology: each student designs a page layout, writes an author bio, and contributes an illustration.
• Author's celebration: students read excerpts aloud to family members and school staff.

Engage & Serve · Weeks 6-8

Students share their musical learning with families and the broader community, using music to create positive connections.

• Family music sharing evening with student performances.
• School-wide assembly featuring cultural music presentations.
• Community service through musical performances at local venues.