Standard 1: Finding Meaning

Learn about the history and importance of American Founders Month with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Explore the history and importance of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Learn the history and importance of Thomas Jefferson as a representative of the United States with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Explore the history and importance of the Supreme Court building as a symbol of the U.S. with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Discover the history and importance of the Declaration of Independence as a symbol of the United States with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Discover the history and importance of the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of the United States with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Explore the history and importance of the White House as a symbol of the United States with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Explore the history and importance of Rosa Parks as a famous person who represents the United States with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Explore the history and importance of the Florida Capital Buildings as a symbol of Florida with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Learn about the history and importance of the Florida Constitution as a symbol of Florida with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Explore the history and importance of Andrew Jackson and how he represents Florida with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Learn about the history and importance of Martin Luther King Jr Day with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Learn about the history and importance of Patriot Day with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Explore the history and importance of Constitution Day with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Learn about the history and importance of Celebrate Freedom Week with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Discover the history and importance of Veterans Day with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Discover the history and importance of the U.S. Capitol building as a symbol of the United States with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Discover the history and significance of Everglades National Park and why it is a symbol of Florida with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Explore the history and meaning of Memorial Day with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Learn about the history and importance of Independence Day in the United States of America with this interactive research page.

Type: Interactive Research Pages

Using the case study, "Lunchroom Madness," students will work collaboratively to identify conflicts presented in a case study and brainstorm conflict resolution skills. Students will identify a conflict and then as a small group, think of different resolutions for that conflict. After the students complete the activity, they will have a chance to see all the different ideas for conflict resolution from each group.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the basics on how generative AI models use Large Language Models (LLMs) and Natural Language Processing NLP to generate outputs. This K-3 lesson is an integrated Computer Science, ELA and Math lesson designed for application of math and ELA content knowledge while exploring and using computational thinking to understand how generative AI works, making cross-curricular connections to understand emerging technologies.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will build background knowledge about the United States government and become familiar with the vocabulary words in the text. Students will use the cover, title page, and photographs to discuss how the text features in What is a Government? by Baron Bedesky add meaning to the text. This is lesson 1 of a 6-lesson unit plan based on this text.

This unit will support students as they explain why people form governments, the role of laws in government, the impact of government on daily life, and the ways the government protects the rights and liberty of American citizens. Students will engage in a read aloud of the text, What is Government, spread out over several lessons, emphasizing text features, vocabulary, central idea, and author’s purpose.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is lesson #4 in the text unit series for “We the Kids,” by David Catrow. Students will identify and interpret academic vocabulary in the text. They will match vocabulary words to pictures to show the meaning of the words. Students will then write a sentence to demonstrate their comprehension of the meaning of each word.

This unit will help second grade students develop the meaning of the Preamble as part of the Constitution of the United States and its direct effect on their daily lives. Students will engage in various activities such as debating parts of the Preamble and complete a play interpreting patriotism. Throughout the unit, students will have to identify and interpret vocabulary, analyze the provided text, and demonstrate an understanding of the Preamble by providing relevant details. The teacher’s role in this unit will be to support their students' knowledge of the Preamble by facilitating research, reviewing student writing, and work.

This resource uses a book that is on the Florida Department of Education's reading list. This book is not provided with this resource.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will read excerpts from the Declaration of Independence. They will use context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words and explain the author’s perspective about the Founders and their reasons for seeking independence in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, teachers will engage students in learning about the naturalization process and how becoming a United States citizen gives you the right to participate and be part of a Constitutional Republic while focusing on a The Congress of the United States' central idea and relevant details as well as text features including headings, photographs, and captions.

This resource uses a book that is on the Florida Department of Education's reading list. This book is not provided with this resource.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson can be used with the text The Congress of the United States, by Christine Taylor-Butler.

Students will identify how the United States government is founded on the principals of a constitutional republic.

This resource uses a book that is on the Florida Department of Education's reading list. This book is not provided with this resource.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will participate in digital research, explain how text features contribute to the meaning of the text, use context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words, and incorporate multimedia to enhance their written work in this integrated lesson plan. Using two sections from an Interactive Research Page, students will learn about Marjory Stoneman Douglas, her contributions as an environmentalist, and why she is an individual who represents Florida.

Type: Lesson Plan

In lesson 5 of a 6-lesson unit plan based on What Is a Government? by Baron Bedesky, students will revisit the relevant details that support the central idea, the government helps keep people safe, from lesson #4. Students will use the relevant details to draft personal narrative writing which identifies how the government helps keeps them safe and create a collage that reinforces their writing.

This unit will support students as they explain why people form governments, the role of laws in government, the impact of government on daily life, and the ways the government protects the rights and liberty of American citizens. Students will engage in a read aloud of the text, What is Government, spread out over several lessons, emphasizing text features, vocabulary, central idea, and author’s purpose. In addition, the teacher will facilitate research, student presentations, expository writing, artwork, computer science, and identifying Florida symbols to help students solidify their interpretation as to why people form governments.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson plan, students listen to a book about Thomas Jefferson and identify relevant details related to important events in his life. This is part one of a four-part Civics and Coding integrated series.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will identify the central idea and relevant details in a passage from What Is a Government? By Baron Bedesky, in this lesson plan. They will  draw a picture to match the relevant details and central idea written in their journal/graphic organizer. Students will share their work, explaining how the government positively impacts their daily life. 

This lesson focuses on pages 8-11 and is lesson #4 of a 6 lesson unit plan based on this text.

This unit will support students as they explain why people form governments, the role of laws in government, the impact of government on daily life, and the ways the government protects the rights and liberty of American citizens. Students will engage in a read aloud of the text, What is Government, spread out over several lessons, emphasizing text features, vocabulary, central idea, and author’s purpose. In addition, the teacher will facilitate research, student presentations, expository writing, artwork, computer science, and identifying Florida symbols to help students solidify their interpretation as to why people form governments.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will use text features to help understand and explain the meaning of academic vocabulary from What Is a Government? by Baron Bedesky in this lesson plan. Students will read a section of the text about the role of laws and create a drawing of text vocabulary that includes text features. This is lesson 2 of a 6-lesson unit plan based on this text.

This unit will support students as they explain why people form governments, the role of laws in government, the impact of government on daily life, and the ways the government protects the rights and liberty of American citizens. Students will engage in a read aloud of the text, What is Government, spread out over several lessons, emphasizing text features, vocabulary, central idea, and author’s purpose. In addition, the teacher will facilitate research, student presentations, expository writing, artwork, computer science, and identifying Florida symbols to help students solidify their interpretation as to why people form governments.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will work with their teacher and their classmates to read chapter one from the book, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. Students will be asked to take a close look at characters' actions and motivations. As a summative assessment, students will identify and agree with a specific character's point of view, supporting their opinions with text-based evidence.

Type: Lesson Plan

During these lessons, students will read The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry. They will learn about the importance of trees by learning new vocabulary, analyzing characters, and finding the theme of the story.

Type: Lesson Plan

A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams is a delightful story of a family who faces the hardships of life together. The focus of these reading lessons is to identify story structure and discuss how the characters responded to challenges. After students complete several learning centers about the book, they will retell the story through writing using grade-appropriate conventions.

Type: Lesson Plan

Introduce your primary students to the rhythmic story of the African plains, Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema. This story is filled with rich vocabulary and rhyming patterns that allow students to interact with context clues and and answer questions about the story elements.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will learn to identify, create, and determine the meaning of compound words. They will participate in a series of engaging center activities to practice using compound words.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will receive an introduction to nonfiction text features and their purpose. They will search for a variety of text features in nonfiction books and test their understanding with an assessment.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn all about the life cycle of plants. They will work in a whole group setting while completing a K-W-L graphic organizer with the teacher and building meaning for vocabulary words relevant to the understanding of the text. They will have an opportunity to work in small groups and share the information they have learned by writing an expository paragraph.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will have an opportunity to use informational texts to explore the physical and chemical changes that occur throughout the seasons of the year. Additionally, students will use examples from the text and images to define the terms, physical and chemical changes.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will practice identifying and using adjectives, as well as distinguishing shades of meaning among closely related adjectives. In the summative assessment, students will create their own narrative to describe a real or fictional person and will practice using precise, as well as vivid adjectives throughout their writing.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn about characters in narrative text through group collaboration, the creation of character trading cards and an oral presentation of original dialogue. Students will work in collaboarative groups to think of adjectives that would best describe how the characters look, behave, and feel.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will read homophone pairs using Dear, Deer, A Book of Homophones by Gene Barretta. Students will identify and explain common homophones using word relationships, context clues, and/or background knowledge. Students will use the homophones correctly in sentences and add illustrations to their sentences that help enhance the meaning of the homophone.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will become familiar with alliteration. Students will have an opportunity to listen to and read alliterative sentences and short stories. Students will create alliterative sentences with a partner and again independently. Students will also work through the different stages of the writing process as they pre-write, write, edit, revise, and publish to contribute to a class book.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will participate in this engaging activity to learn how to write contractions while acting like surgeons.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson students will read Charlotte's Web by E.B. White and complete activities to help them comprehend the story. Students will "dig deep" into the novel by learning new vocabulary words, writing about the characters and their decisions, and taking part in some creative activities. Students will be assessed with higher order thinking questions that require them to draw on elements from the story and make connections. This lesson is for the first four chapters of Charlotte's Web.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will love talking about the unlikely friendship that forms in Miss Maggie by Cynthia Rylant. They will share their opinions by writing a paragraph after learning new vocabulary words and discussing character traits.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson uses nonfiction texts about Martin Luther King, Jr. to give students the opportunity to understand his life and why we still honor him today. Students will create a graphic organizer that uses adjectives to describe Martin Luther King, Jr. and use the information gained from reading the texts to support their descriptions. For their final assessment, students will write an opinion piece describing Martin Luther King, Jr. providing examples from his life that fit those adjectives.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will become familiar with the use of adjectives for the purpose of describing someone or something. Students will use adjectives to describe their teacher and enhance simple sentences by adding adjectives to describe the nouns. Students will also illustrate a self-portrait and use at least six adjectives to describe themselves. They will then choose from those adjectives and write two sentences about themselves using those words. The students will present these sentences and self-portraits to the class. Students will have the opportunity to work individually and with partners throughout this lesson.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson begins with a read aloud of The Gingerbread Man by Eric Kimmel. After that, students will learn how to read a gingerbread recipe. They will discuss author's purpose and the genre of the writing. Students will bake their own gingerbread cookies following the recipe. While the cookies are baking, they will be assessed on their ability to read and comprehend a recipe by doing a "cold read" of a different recipe and answering comprehension questions.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson focuses on central idea and details using a science informational text on the states of matter entitled What is the World Made of? All about Solids, Liquids, and Gases. Students will write a summary which identifies the central idea and relevant details from this text.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will work with their teacher and their classmates to look deeply at chapter one from the book Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan. Students will asked to answer discussio questions, determine the meaning of unfamiliar words, and make inferences about the main character. The lessons will end with the writing of an expository text and the main character's perspective.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn how to use context clues and text features to learn new vocabulary while studying why the White House is a symbol that represents the United States, in this interactive tutorial.

This is part 1 in a six-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn how to use context clues and text features to learn new vocabulary while studying why the Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence represent the United States with this interactive tutorial.

This is part 5 in a six-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Discover how to use context clues and text features to learn new vocabulary while studying why the U.S. Supreme Court is a symbol that represents the United States with this interactive tutorial.

This is part 4 in a six-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Use context clues and text features to learn new vocabulary while studying why the U.S. Capitol building is a symbol that represents the United States with this interactive tutorial.

This is part 3 in a six-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn how to use inference context clues to learn about new vocabulary about the Declaration of Independence in this interactive tutorial.

This is part 6 in a six-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Help Pat the Penguin use context clues to find the meanings of unknown words and phrases in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

In this activity, students will identify common abbreviations.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will choose the correct homophone to complete sentences.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify the meanings of homographs by playing a matching game.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify and sort contractions, synonyms, antonyms, abbreviations, homophones, and homographs.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify the meaning of compound words using their knowledge of the parts of each word.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will match affixes to their meanings by playing a memory game.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify antonyms by playing a card game.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify synonyms by playing a domino game.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will produce words with affixes to complete sentences while playing a board game.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will compare and contrast the attributes of words using a Venn diagram.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will demonstrate understanding of words by applying them to a variety of contexts.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will distinguish one word from another by completing an attribute analysis grid. As an adaptation to this activity, teachers may create attribute analysis grids that reflect units of study.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will add affixes to base words to make new words, then use the new words in sentences.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will produce and categorize words by rolling a category cube and writing corresponding words.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will brainstorm categories and corresponding words. As an adaptation to this activity, students can sort teacher-selected words and identify the category title based on shared attributes.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will compare four words, determine the one that does not belong in the set, and produce a category title for the remaining words based on shared attributes.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify contractions by playing a bingo-type game.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify the relationship among words by placing them on a continuum.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will write simple definitions, sentences, and examples of target words in a graphic organizer.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify the meaning of words in context by playing a matching game.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify unknown words, determine their meaning, and rewrite sentences to demonstrate their understanding.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify attributes of words and record them on a graphic organizer.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify the multiple meanings of words in context.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will write simple definitions, sentences, and synonyms of words on a recording sheet.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify and sort words containing the same root.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify words to complete text.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify the meaning of words in context.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify words to complete sentences.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify more precise alternatives (synonyms) for overused words.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify the multiple meaning of words by constructing a web.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, student will determine the meaning of words. NOTE: To fully meet the expectations of the aligned standards, students will need to identify unknown words in text they are reading and use strategies to determine the meanings of the unknown words.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will describe a target word using a graphic organizer.

Type: Student Center Activity

Using this case study, students can answer the question, "How can students work together to solve conflict?"

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article is a description of how a plant responds to light, gravity, and heat.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes the function of the different parts of a plant.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article explains how tree rings are used to determine the Earth's climate many years ago.

Type: Text Resource