Backward Design - UNIT PLAN TEMPLATE

Title: Creature features

Year Level: 1 Teacher: Mr Nathan Butler
Focus Curriculum Area (s): Science, Mathematics, HASS and English Duration: 4 weeks

STAGE 1: Curriculum Links

(What do we want students to learn? From the Australian/SCASA Curriculum)

General Capabilities Literacy Numeracy ICT Critical and Creative Thinking

(GP)
Ethical Behaviour Personal and Social Intercultural Understanding
Cross-curriculum
Priorities (CCP) Aboriginal and TSI Asia and Australias Sustainability
Histories and Culture Engagement with Asia
Year Level - Living things have a variety of external
Content features (ACSSU017) (ACARA, 2016d)
Descriptors - Living things live in different places where their needs
are met (ACSSU211) (ACARA, 2016d) By the end of Year 1, students
- Collect data and information from observations and describe objects and events that they
identify information and data from sources encounter in their everyday lives, and
provided (ACHASSI019) (ACARA, 2016b) the effects of interacting with materials
and objects. They describe changes in
- Develop confidence with number sequences to and their local environment and how
from 100 by ones from any starting point. Skip count different places meet the needs of
Year Level Achievement
by twos, fives and tens starting from living things.
Standards Students respond to questions, make
zero (ACMNA012) (ACARA, 2016c)
predictions, and participate in guided
- Compare different kinds of images in narrative and
investigations of everyday
informative texts and discuss how they contribute to phenomena. They follow instructions
meaning (ACELA1453 (ACARA, 2016a) to record and sort their observations
- Science involves observing, asking questions about, and share them with others.
and describing changes in, objects and
events (ACSHE021) (ACARA, 2016d)
- Participate in guided investigations to explore and
answer questions (ACSIS025) (ACARA, 2016d)

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Knowledge (What are students expected to learn?)
Identify the body parts of insects
Be able to name the features of insects such as wings, antennae, shells
Identify requirements for life
Difference between vertebrates and invertebrates
Features of each classification of animal
Classifications of different habitats
Skills (What are students expected to be able to do?)
Categorise animals into their different classifications
Write an investigation about plant growth
Identify features of insects and their uses through microscopes
Correctly spell words around animal classification
Identify the habitats of different Australian animals

LEARNING OUTCOMES: What relevant goals will this unit of work address? Draw these out of the content descriptors and the achievement standards.
Students will be able to......
Spell words relating to animal classification
Label the body parts of different insects
Classify animals as vertebrates or invertebrates
Categorise animals according to their classification
Identify the habitats of animals
Differentiate between the needs of plants and animals

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UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN STAGE 2: ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE

Task description:
Students will be involved in learning focusing on animal classifications, the naming of body parts of animals and the features attributed to each of the different
classifications such as six legs for insects or wings for birds. Students will examine the requirements that humans and plants need to survive and where these can be
found and how they differ between the two species. The students will present the work in a multimodal format, the student can choose to write and draw the
assessment if the student is not comfortable writing or spelling the names of animals into the classification box. The target audience will be in year 1 with a class of 24
students. There is a diversity in reading level in the class and a method involving drawing in assessment is a good way of eliciting information without having to get the
students to write their answers down. The students will complete their work as a think pair share styled lesson. Each student will start of completing their work which will
be assessed and to take the stigma the students will work with others to guess their animal. This creates inclusivity and reduces the appearance that the lesson is an
assessment. This assessment will be due at the end of the first topic on creature features. The aim is to gather an understanding of students engagement and retention
about how animals are different and can survive, such as ants hiding underground or bees using their stinger to protect the hive.

Assessment Criteria:
- Living things have a variety of external features (School Curriculum and Standards Authority [SCSA], 2016).
- Living things live in different places where their needs are met (SCSA, 2016).

Assessment recording template: the students work will be assessed on completion and accuracy, ideally students should be able to identify the features and their benefit
to the animal e.g. feeding or movement. Above standard students are to link the animals habitat to the needs of the animal. As demonstrated in the rubric

(Primary connections, 2012)

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Feedback: Students will receive feedback based on the work sample they produce. The feedback will couple good areas of the work and areas they will need to improve
on to achieve 100% in the assessment. Motivation for students will be crucial in the feedback to ensure students do not become complacent or disheartened when they
are completing work in the future if it seems too difficult.

Self-assessment: Students will have the opportunity to self-reflect when people come to check out their work and guess their animals, if students are unable to
guess their animals they may feel the clues have been too hard or they did not provide enough detail for the animal to be determined correctly. This may be an area
the student is wanting to improve upon for the next work module.

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UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN STAGE 3: PLAN LEARNING EXPERIENCES AND INSTRUCTION

What events will help students:

Experience and explore the enduring understandings and essential questions in the unit?
How will you equip them with needed skills and knowledge?
Achieve the desired results identifies in Stage 1?
Equip students to complete the assessment tasks identified in Stage 2?

Learning Experiences Assessment For/As Learning (Formative Resources

Assessment)
1 Week 1 lesson 1 (SCIENCE)
Diagnostic: students will work through I saw an ant on the tracks
- Hook: Teacher begins by reading I saw an ant on the train track what they believe animals to be such as picture book
- Introduction: the module of work on animals talking about what we can different classifications they may already
see on animals and habitats brainstorm about what students know know. What they already can label on Ant farm
- Lesson: Send students back to their desks to write on a lined piece of animals and the different features.
paper different insects which they suggest they might find in the Clipboard
schoolyard
- Send students out to the yard to see if they can see any animals they
listed on their piece of paper (15 minutes)
- Conclusion: gather students back on the mat and discuss what insects
they saw,
- Transition activity: Students are to follow the teacher to the ant nest and
using a spoon collect ants which crawl on the spoon and put them into
the container (1 for each student in the class) and take them back to the
class and unveil the ant farm and put the ants into the ant farm.

2 Week 1 lesson 1 (Maths)

Checklist: Students graphs are to be Rulers
- Hook: introduce with mental recall games, students have a brain break collected and checked for titles, data
and recall maths facts and do a short quiz calling out through a collection and able to create vertical Graph paper
PowerPoint presentation columns and writing the column above
the correct bug
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 - Introduce graphing, students are to get their science books out from
yesterday and look at the bug count from the previous lesson.
- Students are to write up a piece of graph paper using rulers and a correct
procedure for making graphs
- Students are to write the names of bugs they found across the bottom of
the page and using the numbers of bugs colour in each relative square in
a column
- Conclusion: ask students; using the graph how can we tell which bug you
saw the most? Which bug did you see the most? Collect the graphs and
return their science book to their tray.

3 Week 1 lesson 2 (SCIENCE)

Observation: students work will be Digital microscope
- Hook: review the ant farm and look at the tunnels they have created since marked to check the appropriate naming
the previous lesson earlier in the week, devise a feeding roster for the of body parts of the ant. And appropriate Handout for students to label
ants notes have been taken. ants Appendix A
- Introduction: get students to ask who has seen ants up close and the
names of the body parts, get out the digital microscope and look at ants
on the interactive whiteboard at 100x magnification.
- Lesson: have a still of an ant and have a printout for each student with
arrows attached to label each relevant part of the ant.
- Once all parts are labelled, ask the students what the features of the ant
serve such as the legs, pincers and antennae.
- Conclusion: leavers passport, students are to tell me one thing they learnt
from the lesson to move to put their science books away.

4 Week 1 Lesson 1 (ENGLISH)

Thermometer: students will colour in the Chalk
- Hook: students are to sing the ants are marching nursery rhyme and thermometer full if they understand the
march around the basketball up to 6 and students are to get into groups work, middle if they somewhat
of up 6, as there are 24 kids in the class I can participate where necessary understand the work or only the bulb if
- Introduction: the students will re-enter the classroom and on their desk, they do not understand the work at all.
will be a spelling chart for words they learnt related to ants in the last
science lesson.

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 - The teacher will pronounce the word and the students as a class are to
say the word aloud. The students will then break the word down into
individual phonics and attempt to spell the word correctly. The teacher
will then write the word onto the whiteboard and students are to do look,
say, cover, write, check [LSCWC] for the words and attempt to spell the
words correctly 5 times in the subsequent columns.
- Conclusion: students will go outside and are to spell out the words using
their body parts to the words. Students have the option to create the
letters with friends or make them individually and are to call the letters
out as they have finished them. Once they have done this, students can
trace where their bodies were spelling words on the ground.

5 Week 2 Lesson - (SCIENCE/ ENGLISH) YouTube video -

Formative: traffic light system, red to https://www.youtube.com/wa
- Hook: ask the students to put their hand up if they have any allergies? Ask recover the information, amber I know it tch?v=ta154f5Rp5Y
the students if anyone is allergic to bee stings? Ask if anyone has ever somewhat but can move on or green I
been stung by a bee or a wasp? fully understand and ready to go. Digital microscope
- Introduction: students will be given a blank copy of a bee with lines and
using last weeks spelling words students are to guess in their groups Handout of a bee to label -
what each line could be. Then the students will view a bee under the appendix A
microscope and we will go through what the bee looks like and name the
respective body parts and ask students what each body part looks like it Images of bees for students to
will do to help the bee survive. And then go through it as a whole class. glue into handout
- Bring in a bee honeycomb from home and show that bees live in hives
and can make honey. Once students have had a look, students are to Honeycomb for students to
return to their seats look at
- Conclusion: watch video on busy bees to recap the lesson and hear ideas
from another perspective.

6 Week 2 lesson 2 (SCIENCE) (DOUBLE LESSON/ 2hrs) (Part 1)

- Hook: Ideas from a hat at the front of the class there will be four
objects, a jar of air, a bottle of water, a box of cereal and a pillow. The

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 students are to look at these four items and form an opinion as to what
these all have in common. Students are to write their idea and place it
into the hat and the teacher will go through several of these ideas before
introducing the lesson. Informal Venn diagram: Mason jars of air

- Introduction: students are to discuss using a think pair share [TPS] what it Compare how the requirements for life Box of weet-bix
means to be alive students will create an idea and things that you do to are similar and different without making
make sure youre alive. Using different coloured pens students can write it a formal lesson have a vague Pillow
in their classmates ideas into their TPS. comparison
Water bottle
- The teacher will explain the characteristics of life and the relevance to
which each of the 4 items represented from the start of the lesson. the Hat
need for food and water will be the focus of the lesson along with sleep
and shelter. Think pair share activity
appendix C
- The dynamic of what students require for life and a checklist of these
items for children will show how they have sustained life up to this point. Four different coloured pens

- Conclusion: a snowball discussion will take place to end the first half of
the lesson with students being asked their favourite food as a part of the
food element for survival.

7 Week 2 lesson 3 (SCIENCE) (DOUBLE LESSON/ 2hrs) (Part 2)

Informal Venn diagram: 8 succulent plants
After learning about the requirements of life for humans the class will look at the
requirements of plants. Compare how the requirements for life 6 Pot plants
are similar and different without making
Hook: each table group will be given a succulent from the schools plant room and it a formal lesson have a vague Fertilizer/ potting mix
asked to describe their plant to a partner in only 5 words. Students will move to comparison
another table and tell someone on that table the 5 words they used to describe Seedlings
their plant and the other person will have to guess which table they came from.

Introduction: the lesson will begin with a revision of the essentials of human life
and asked if they relate to plants, some students will answer water but not food
or shelter. And this is the answer that is expected.

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 Key teaching: the students will go through the importance of light, food and
water is to plants. A brief/ simple introduction to the role of light in plants will be
explained to students.

Activity: students will plant a pot plant as a group of 4 totalling 6 pot plants, each
of these will be randomly assigned, water and light, no light, no water. The
students will begin an investigation looking at the growth of plants and how the
conditions affect the growth. Students will need to adhere to the requirements of
their plant.

Conclusion: Students are to write a hypothesis (guess) of what they believe will
happen in their science books before they put their plant in its environment. And
draw what they see in their science book.

8 Week 2 lesson 3 - (ENGLISH) https://www.youtube.com/wa

Informal marking: make sure students tch?v=ptADSmJCVwQ
- Hook: watch a video on the scientific method on YouTube have been able to write down the stages
of a report and identify the variables
- Introduction: on the board will be written the word plants mixed up like a from the lesson for their group. Depth
game of boggle, students are to try and determine the word to elicit not required simple work is the goal.
todays topic.

- Key lesson: students are to write the acronym down the left-hand side of
the page and write the word for the relevant section next to it as they get
to each section. As a whole class, students will work through a simple
investigation leaving enough space in the collect section to draw in
weekly pictures into their work. Students based on their group will need
to write their own different variables based on their group.

- Conclusion: students will share their variables with the class, stressing
that everyones will be different so there is no need to copy.

9 Week 3 lesson 1 - (SCIENCE)

Diagnostic: what groupings do students Container of animals from a
Hook: a box of assorted animals will be placed on each table and without any put their animals into. variety of classifications
prompts students are to group the animals based on how they think they are all

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 related. All answers can be correct if they are able to tell me how they chose the 24 copies of animals sheet for
groups of each animal students to cut out and sort
Appendix B
Introduction: a brainstorm of different types of animals will take place, more
obvious answers such as birds, fish and insects may be quickly noted but different Discussion: Students will be able to Scissors
types such as mammals or reptiles might be new concepts to a large proportion of rationalise their work to the teacher or
students. peers. Glue sticks

Key teaching: students will dictate the classification of common animals and the
relevant things that are unique to that classification. Students will guess animals
which fit into the classification after the dictation has been completed.

Conclusion: Students will be provided with different animal pictures. According to

their classification students are to cut out these animals and glue then next to the
adjoining animal classification.

10 Week 3 Lesson 1 (MATHEMATICS/ HASS) https://www.youtube.com/wa

Anecdotal checklist: tch?v=dCm5CcQhU-c
Hook: students are to watch a short video on the different types of classifications
of animals to refresh their memories from the prior science lesson. Students have clear goals regarding graph paper
counting of animals and classifying the
Introduction: students will move to the mat and putting their hand up students different animals into the correct coloured pencils
are to give as many different types of animals as they can name up to 20 as a grouping.
class. In an effort to aid students, writing the classification of different animals in smartboard
different colours will make it easier. Do not stipulate this to students.

Key learning: Students are to write the classification of animals across the bottom
of the page. And determine which category each animal goes in by colouring in
one square on the column representative of each classification. A diversity of
colour is strongly encouraged.

Conclusion: The teacher will complete the graph on the smartboard. The key
focus will be the correct counting of each classification type to ensure students
have the right number in each column. Corrections can be made during this time
also.
11 Week 3 Lesson 1 - (HASS)

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 Hook: Read the book, rumble in the jungle, and get students to recognise what
the animals are and where they think they find the animals.

Introduction: Get out a globe and show there are other countries besides Observation: students are engaged in the Rumble in the jungle picture
Australia in the world. A large proportion of the animals in the story are found in lesson, and actively participating in table book
Africa so students will try and find Africa on the classroom map of the world. discussion with an ability to identify the
classifications of animals. Globe
Key teaching: understanding the location of Australia on the map an
understanding of Africa and its location relative to Australia is key. Understanding Class map
the habitat of a proportion of the African animals in the text, introducing key
words such as savannah and habitat. Animal classifications sheet
Appendix D
Conclusion: Students will spend time classifying the different animals in the book
into the different animal classifications, on a list of names students are to cut out
which they believe is correct and glue it into their books.

12 WEEK 3 Lesson 2 - (ENGLISH)

Spelling words jumble words. Students will hear the word and using phonics Observation and informal marking: English words sheet
find the correct word based on the sounds and using the sounds create the right students will be observed to make sure
word. they are sounding out words to find the Newspaper
phonics involved in the words and the
Hook: have a newspaper and have it opened to the quiz and questions section in digraphs which are present in the words. What am I quiz
the paper and ask the students why they think I have it opened to this page?
The marking of student work is also
Key teaching: by playing a game similar to boggle, students will be given a sheet important as to see where students are
with six different words in a circle all mixed up, students wont know which word going wrong and to see how well
corresponds to which circle. The teacher will say the word and using phonics students can translate letters into words.
students are to sound out each letter of the word and try to find the
corresponding word and locate the correct circle. Once students have found the
correct circle students will have an attempt at spelling the word correctly using all
of the letters in the circle.

Conclusion: the teacher will ask students what am I? the students will receive
clues about the animals they have looked at during the module and try and work
out what animal the teacher is referring to.

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13 WEEK 4 Lesson 1 - (ENGLISH)
Checklist: students have included all the Jungle book audio book
Hook: the teacher will begin the lesson by reading an audio book for the jungle relevant parts of narrative writing. And
book. The focus of the lesson is having an animal sidekick or friend. appropriately used all the sections Proforma for students to write
correctly. their story into Appendix E
Introduction: students will be on the mat and reciting what should be in each
section of a narrative. Students will walk through their work with the teacher
outside the classroom. Discussing each section before they go back in to write
their own story.

Key teaching: using a proforma students are to write a story they share with an
animal, the animal can be the complication or can be a pet. The story must have
all the key features of a narrative.

Conclusion: students are to draw the characters of the story so when classmates
go to read other students stories they can see the characters involved.

14 WEEK 4 Lesson 2 - (ENGLISH) https://www.youtube.com/wa

Hook: using phonics students will be given words which correspond with a letter Anecdotal notes: Comprehension skills, tch?v=eXQPD6OcugY&pbjrelo
of the theme of the days lesson. Students will be given words and students will students are to take the information from ad=10
have to take the first sound from each word to spell out comic. the song and apply it to the activity of
drawing and demonstrates retention. Student workbooks
Introduction: students will listen to the song, there was an old lady who
swallowed a fly on YouTube. This will reacquaint students with the song.

Key learning: students are to listen to the song and draw pictures which relate to
the song. Students are to create 6 boxes on a page and can be encouraged to use
a double spread of pages if they want to have more pictures than just the animals
she swallowed.

Conclusion: to finish the lesson students will take part in a gallery walk as they
walk around and observe the work of other students. At the end the teacher will
ask students who they thought had the best work and who put in the most effort.

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15 WEEK 4 Lesson 1 - (SCIENCE)
Summative assessment Ant costume
Students will complete a summative assessment on animals and their
classifications. Appendix F - Animals
worksheet assessment sheet
Hook: The teacher will enter the classroom wearing an ant costume, the students
have been looking at their ant farm and seeing how they have grown and shaped
their tunnels for the past weeks.

Assessment: students will complete the sheet on describing an animal for

students to figure out. Students will fill in the who am I questions and draw in
their animal into the box and glue a piece of paper onto the flap so it is not
revealed. Students must be able to label their animal correctly, utilising body
parts. Part two students will have a collection of animals on the back and students
have to draw or write the animal into the correct box, demonstrating an
understanding of classifications.

Conclusion: students will walk around and write the name of the student and try
to guess the name of the animal in their workbook. The students will reveal their
animals and students can tick or cross whether they guessed correctly

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