CORE KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION
Units for supporting background knowledge and vocabulary
The Core Knowledge Foundation provides open (FREE) access to content-rich curriculum materials for preschool through grade 8 – Grade K- 8 (NZ 1-9Years)
The lower grade language arts units kindergarten to Grade 2, which is New Zealand Year 1- 3, include two teacher guides, Anthology and the Supplemental guide. You can choose to use either or combine as the some of the objectives and activities have been adjusted for children with comprehension delays, language delays, ESL learners or kids who need extra support building vocabulary and background knowledge. Both include the read alouds but again the supplementary guides story has been adjusted to make it accessible to all learners making it more inclusive for every student.
This information has been taken directly from Core Knowledge Foundation website – The materials made available for download are freely available for anyone to use, adapt, and share (with attribution), but no one is permitted to sell either the original programme, an adaptation of it, or lesson plans that reproduce any part of it.
Here is an example of a Grade 1 (New Zealand Year 2) Language Arts Unit for Fables and Stories.
Fables and Stories
Focus: Students are introduced to fables and stories that have delighted people for generations, including Aesop’s fables, a folktale of Anansi the Spider, and Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit.” Students increase their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, learn valuable lessons about virtues and behavior, and become familiar with the key elements of a story.
Read-Aloud Anthology: Fables and StoriesThis comprehensive teacher guide specifies learning objectives and provides background information, daily lesson plans, read-alouds, assessments, and other resources for teaching the domain.
Flip Book: Fables and StoriesEach Flip Book contains a sequenced collection of images that accompany the Listening & Learning read-alouds. The engaging visuals reinforce students’ understanding of concepts and promote engagement with the text.
Image Cards: Fables and StoriesImage Cards are used to reinforce and deepen students’ understanding of the information covered in the domain. They are primarily used during Extension Activities. Common exercises include sorting, retelling, and sequencing.
Read-Aloud Supplemental Guide: Fables and StoriesDesigned primarily to provide instructional scaffolding resources for reading specialists, special education teachers, and ESL teachers, the online-only Supplemental Guide offers activities that the general classroom teacher may use as needed. Resources include adapted read-alouds, engagement supports, Vocabulary Charts, Multiple Meaning Word Activities, Syntactic Awareness Activities, and Vocabulary Instructional Activities.
Here is a sample of a History and Geography Unit for Grade 2 (New Zealand Year 3 ). The History and Geography units come with one teacher guide only.
Ancient Greece
Focus: No ancient civilisation has had more influence on the Western world than that of Ancient Greece. In the Grade 2 Core Knowledge History and Geography unit Ancient Greece, students explore the ideas, patterns of government, and art forms that have formed the basis of much of our own culture.
Teacher Guide: Ancient GreeceThe Teacher Guide provides detailed lesson plans for each Student Book chapter, as well as activity page masters, assessments, additional activities (such as virtual field trips, simulations, or literary selections), and civics and arts connections to reinforce the lesson content.
Student Book: Ancient GreeceCKHG Student Books offer engagingly written and richly illustrated text on the topics specified for the unit. The Student Books include maps and full color images. In general, the content and presentation in the CKHG K-2 units are appropriate for students in lower elementary grades.
My Passport: Ancient GreeceMy Passport is a tangible reminder and souvenir of the various events and places that students using the CKHG units at their grade level will have visited and learned about over the course of the school year. Teachers will need to make sufficient copies of the Passport and passport images for each student. After the…
My Passport Images: Ancient GreeceEach unit will contain three or more beautiful passport images that can be used as passport stamps. The stamps are a reminder of some of the wonderful places the students explore in each unit.
Here is a sample of a Science Unit for Grade 2 (New Zealand Year 3 ). The Science Units come with teachers guide.
The Properties of Matter
Focus: In this unit, students learn that matter, the “stuff” of which everything is made, exists in many forms. Students will practice sorting and grouping materials by characteristics, called properties, and investigate how the properties of different types of matter make them useful for different tasks. Students take measurements, which permit simple comparisons of different objects. Students explore concepts that include the following:
Teacher Guide: Properties of MatterTeacher Guide: The Properties of Matter Teacher Guide provides detailed lesson plans for each Student Book chapter, as well as activity page masters, assessments, and additional activities to reinforce the lesson content.
Student Book: Properties of MatterStudent Book: The Properties of Matter Student Books offer engagingly written and richly illustrated text on the topics specified for the unit. Each volume includes color photographs and illustrations and is intended to be read aloud with students across the instructional sequence of lessons.
This is an American Curriculum and some of the history topics reflect this but as you will see there are many topics to choose from to support your child or students in class.
The deb would like to clarify at this stage we are only recommending Units to build knowledge and vocabulary not the phonics component as this has not been reviewed.