Three short stories and ten questions show 1st grade students how animal parents keep their babies alive. A mother bird drops bugs into her chicks' open beaks, a wolf pup whines when it strays from the pack, and a joey rides in its mother's warm pouch. The questions move from finding facts to word meaning and a true or false item, then to spotting the pattern across all three families. It is written for NGSS 1-LS1-2 and doubles as a reading lesson.
1-LS1-2
“Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive.”
Question 9 hits it directly, since students name the pattern in how all three parents help. Questions 1, 5, and 8 each pull one parent or baby behavior from the text.
Three chicks in a nest open their beaks and chirp when they are hungry. Their mother flies off, finds bugs, and drops them into their beaks.
A wolf pup plays near the woods. When it walks too far, it whines, and its mother runs to bring it back to the pack.
A small joey cannot hop fast yet, so it climbs into its mother's pouch, which the text calls "like a warm pocket."
Three questions: what the chicks do when hungry, what the mother bird feeds them, and what a family of wolves is called.
Questions 4 to 8 ask students to find the sound the mother bird hears, explain why the pup whines, choose what dangerous means, and decide whether the pouch is cold and wet.
Question 9 asks for a pattern across the chick, the pup, and the joey. Question 10 asks which parent has the hardest job, with a reason.
Read-aloud
Read one story a day for three days, then do the questions on day four. Each story fits in a single sitting on the rug.
ELA block
Questions 4 and 6 are reading skills, finding a phrase and a word's meaning. Use the sheet in reading time and count it for science as well.
Opinion writing
Question 10 has no wrong answer. The key's example, a mother bird flying back and forth all day for bugs, shows the kind of reason to look for.
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