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This text set is designed for students in kindergarten who will be learning about the impact humans have on our planet and solutions to help keep our planet/ living things in our planet safe.

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K-ESS3-3. Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.* [Clarification Statement: Examples of human impact on the land could include cutting trees to produce paper and using resources to produce bottles. Examples of solutions could include reusing paper and recycling cans and bottles.]

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Children will learn that certains things humans do can hurt the planet (cutting down trees/ littering)

Learn about recycling and the benefits of recycling

Learn about the importance of trees and what they do for us

Talk about different ways we can help our environment other than recycling

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Why I selected the books and the order I will read them in:

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Why I selected the books and the order I will read them in:

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I selected these texts because the authors of Supporting Content- Rich Vocabulary Instruction Through Book Reading state the importance of starting with more familiar genres before introducing the less familiar genres in the text set (Neuman & Wright, 2013). The authors say to start with a predictable book, then a storybook, and then the informational books ( Neuman & Wright, 2013). I also wanted to include appropriate books for this age group. I picked books that kids could have connections with, a lot of illustrations to show (visuals), and rhyming words. Rhyming is an important skill to start teaching early childhood students because it teaches them the sound of the language and different word families.

I will be reading my books in the same order Neuman & Wright state to do so in the article. I will start with Clean up!, next will be Michael Recycle, then The Great Kapok Tree, and last will be Be a Friend to Trees. This order will help each text go off of each other by learning new vocabulary words. For example, Clean up! Talks about recycling and humans littering on the beach which ruins our beaches and hurts the animals in the ocean. The next book in the set will be Michael Recycle which also talks about these vocabulary words as well (recycling and littering). Another way the books go off of each other is because first we learn about how people littering can affect our environment. The first two books in the text set talk about this and a solution to littering is by cleaning up and recycling. The next two genres are informational books. These books state the importance of trees and everything they do for us. We will discuss how humans taking down too many trees can affect our planet and living things.

The text set is designed to retain knowledge on academic vocabulary by incorporating books that go off of each other and to also retain knowledge on the overall topic of humans impacting our environment/ solutions to help. I will break up the lesson starting with the topic of littering and recycling. We will then transition into how cutting down our trees affects our environment in many ways and a solution for cutting down trees. At the end of reading these books, we will talk about different types of solutions to help our environment other than recycling.

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Clean up! By Nathan Bryon & Illustrated by Dapo Adeola.

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Genre: Storybook
This book is about a child named Rocket. She is going to visit her grandparents with her family. She is very excited to go to the beach and to go surfing in the ocean. Her grandparents run whale-watching tours and have an animal sanctuary behind their house. When Rocket gets to the beach, her and her grandma go surfing! Rocket notices a baby sea turtle on the beach tangled in plastic. They bring the sea turtle to the sanctuary and her grandparents tell Rocket how plastic is ruining the islands. Rocket and her grandpa take a walk on the beach and they see garbage all over it. Rocket gets people on the beach to help clean up the trash. One of the characters in the book has an idea for her mom to make bins for trash out of the trash they collected. They release the sea turtle back into the ocean and grandpa says to Rocket “did you know that one day you are going to change the world”? The last page of the books talks about reducing, going organic, and disposing of trash. The book states the importance of recycling.

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Michael Recycle By Ellie Bethel and illustrated by Alexandre Colombo 

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Genre: Predictable/ Rhyming book
Description of text: There was a town called Abberdoo-Rimey where the town had garbage all over it. The people got lazy and the air never smelled fresh. A superhero called “Michael Recycle” came to save the town, but still needs everyone’s help in order to do so. He said that everyone needs to recycle before it’s too late. The people in the town recycled their paper, plastic, cans, and old junk like pots and pans. The town was clean again and they had a celebration. When Micheal returned to visit, the town was still clean and nobody was littering. On the last page there are helpful tips on how to help our planet by recycling, turning off electronics, turning off water, taking shorter showers, and walking/riding a bike instead of using a car.

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Genre: Informational
Description of text: This book is about the Amazon rainforest. The great Kapok Tree is home to many animals and a village boy who lives there. Two men go to cut down the tree and one of them starts trying to cut it down. He gets tired and takes a nap under the tree. Different exotic animals tell him why he can’t cut this tree down and how the tree represents so much more than he thinks. It represents a home, the animals depend on this tree, oxygen, if you cut down one tree down it will lead to cutting down more trees, etc. In the end, he wakes up from his nap seeing the boy and animals looking at him. He goes to cut it down, but decides not to and leaves the rainforest.

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Genre: Informational
Description of text: This book is about the importance of trees. The book goes through how everything made out of wood is because of trees. Books, paper, paper towels, toilet paper, magazines and more are also all made from trees. Trees provide animals and humans with food and shelter. Without trees we wouldn’t have air to breathe (oxygen). Trees are something we can’t live without. This book shows kids how important trees really are and to be more than a “friend” to trees.

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Vocabulary:

Recycle- Taking materials ready to be thrown away and changing them into reusable materials.

It can also mean to lower the amount of garbage that is thrown away.

Clean up!  Page 40. "Dispose of your trash properly. Separate it carefully by recycling".
Michael Recycle: Page 7 "You've got to recycle. You've got to act soon! Before all your trash reaches up to the moon".
Page 10 "Clean up and recycle- how hard can it be?"
Page 11 " They recycled their paper, their plastic and cans, and even old junk like used pots and pans!"

Littering- Trash or garbage that is not thrown away properly and is left lying where it doesn’t belong.

Examples: in the ocean, on the beach, in a parking lot, playground etc.

Clean up! talks about trash/ plastic on the beach through out the story, we will talk about how that is called littering.
Michael Recycle: Page 16 " Look at our town. It gleams and it glitters. Now nothing's wasted and nobody litters!"

Earth- The planet that we live on.
Michael Recycle: Page 5 " He bounced off the earth with a thump and a bump".

The Great Kapok Tree: Page 6 "The roots of these great trees will wither and die, and there will be nothing left to hold the earth in place"

Depend- To rely on someone or something.

The Great Kapok Tree: Page 14 "Before him stood the rain forest child, and all around him, staring, were the creatures who depended upon the great Kapok tree".

The Great Kapok Tree: Page 5 " You see, all living things depend on one another".

Be a friend to Trees: Page 6 "Other living things depend on green plants for food".
Be a friend to Trees: Page 14 "Many people depend on water that is stored underground".

Oxygen- The air we breathe and need it to live.
The Great Kapok Tree: Page 10 "Senhor, do you know what we animals and humans need in order to live? Oxygen. And, Senhor, do you know what trees produce? Oxygen".

Be a Friend to Trees: Page 16 "One of them is oxygen. It is the gas that our bodies need. It is the gas that all animals need. Each time we breathe, we take oxygen out of the air. Trees and other green plants keep putting oxygen into the air. They give off oxygen as they make their food".

Be a friend to Trees: Page 20 "Much of the oxygen that people and animals need comes from trees".

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Different ways I will build an understanding for each key term across the text set unit:

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Different ways I will build an understanding for each key term across the text set unit:

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Using multiple read aloud to provide students with repeated exposure to the vocabulary words and topic.

Educational videos

Worksheets on recycling. For example: students will color and cut out different paper, bottle cans, plastic, and glass items that they can recycle. They will separate these items by what type of product they are. If it's a soda can, it will go under the bottle can bin. There will be four categories
(paper, cans, plastic, and glass) and under each recycle bin there will be the items they colored and cut out under the bin. They will have to identify which item goes under which recycling bin.

We will make a poster called Heal the Earth and each draw a picture of something we can do to help our planet at the end of the unit. We will hang this up in our classroom to remember how each of us can help.

We will go outside around the school and playground to pick up any trash and litter that has been left outside. Each student will have their own bag and we will see what we find, count how many items we found altogether, and see if there is a certain item we found a lot of outside. Ex: candy bar wrapper.

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Clean up!

Question 1: Why do you think they haven’t seen a whale in a very long time?

Question 2: Seeing all the garbage on the beach, what would you do if you were Rocket? How would you help the beach?

Michael Recycle:

Question 1: What does it mean to litter?

Question 2: What are some items that you could recycle?

The Great Kapok Tree:

Question 1:Does anyone know what the word oxygen means? If so, what is oxygen?

Question 2: Why do the animals depend on the Kapok tree? What do they use the tree for?

Be a Friend toTrees:

Question 1: Can someone give me a reason why trees are so important to our planet?

Question 2: What are some ways we can help keep our planet safe? We know we can recycle, what are some other ways other than recycling?

I will use the 3 C's described in West et al by having students connect with the text. I want students to think of these questions like they are the character in the book. The authors state "encourage children to provide specific evidence from experiences to support their ideas during discussion" ( West et al., 2021). I will ask questions like what can you recycle? Having them think of times they have recycled or what they would do if they were Rocket to help clean up the beach? I want the students to think of their experiences and connect to the stories. This incorporates coherence and making connections.

Clarification will be incorporated by asking questions and repeatedly going over vocabulary by conversations, activities, and videos.

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Bryon, N., & Adeola, D. (2020). Clean up! Puffin.

Cherry , L. (1990). The Great Kapok Tree . HarperCollins Publisher .

Lauber, P., & Keller, H. (2002). Be a friend to trees. Scholastic.

Neuman, S.B., & Wright, T.S. (2013).  Supporting content-rich vocabulary through book reading.  All About Words.  Teachers College Press, NY, NY.  pp. 62-82

Patterson, E., & Colombo, A. (2008). Michael Recycle. IDW Publishing .

West, J.M., Wright, T.S., & Gotwals, A. (2021).  Supporting scientific discussions: Moving kindergartners’ conversations forward.  The Reading Teacher, 74(6), 703-712. Doi: 10.1002/trtr.1977.