Page 2 - Kind News, Sept/Oct 2022, Teacher Guide

COMMON CORE, NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS (NGSS), AND CASEL-ALIGNED ACTIVITIES

Third grade: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.5 With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen
writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.
To go with entire issue: After reading all of the issue content, ask students to answer the Kind Questions. Then ask them to
jot down what they notice about them. How are the questions phrased in an open-ended way? How do they encourage the
reader to think about how the content makes them feel? Ask students to choose an article they liked the most and create a
Kind Question based on the article. Ask them to make sure their question requires more than a yes or no answer, and then
to swap questions with a partner and try to answer each other's questions. Discuss: Did they find it easy or hard to answer
the questions? Why? What is one way their partner’s question could have been improved?
For other Kind Question examples, view our past issues at KindNews.org/archive.

Fourth grade: NGSS 4-LS1-2. Use a model to describe that animals receive different types of information through their
senses, process the information in their brain, and respond to the information in different ways.
CASEL Core Competency: Social Awareness
To go with To the Rescue: “Meet Kewpie”: After reading the article, ask students what Kewpie’s disability was. What is a
disability? What does Kewpie use to help with his disability? Discuss how some people’s bodies have challenges for which they
might need extra help, or how some people’s brains have a hard time focusing. Try these perspective-taking activities such as
the ones below. Consider children in your classroom who may have disablilities and choose other activities accordingly.
• For the next 10 minutes, ask students to use only one • Teach a 5-10 minute mini-lesson while playing
hand to do daily activities like turning in work or music or a video on a laptop or smartboard.
unpacking their things.
Reflect on the activities as a class or with a journal prompt. How did it feel to not have use of both of their hands? How did
they have to work harder to focus on the lesson with all of the distractions happening at the same time? To extend the
activity, invite an adult with a disability to speak to your students, or watch a video about someone speaking about their
disability and how it impacts them.
Fifth grade: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.7 Conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge
through investigation of different aspects of a topic. CASEL Core Competency: Self-Management
To go with Incredible Careers with Animals: Social Entrepreneur: After reading the article together, ask students what they
think of the idea of being a social entrepreneur. Can they imagine themselves having a career like that? Ask them if they have
thought about what their career will be. Brainstorm some ideas for careers (refer to past Kind News issues below for ideas).
Ask them to research what their chosen career would entail and share their findings with the class.
What education will they need? • What might a typical day be like? • What people or animals might they interact with?
To extend the activity, students could interview someone with their chosen career and write up the highlights
from the interview.
Check out these animal career feature issues, free to view at KindNews.org/archive!
• May/June 2022: Ethologist • September/October 2021: Dog Photographer
• March/April 2022: Animal Control Officer • May/June 2021: Entomologist

Sixth grade: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.1.C Pose and respond to specific questions with elaboration and detail
by making comments that contribute to the topic, text, or issue under discussion. CASEL Core Competencies:
Self-Management, Social Awareness, Self-Awareness
To go with Incredible Careers with Animals: Social Entrepreneur: After reading the article, ask students why they think this
project was so important to Alex Lu. Have them jot down some causes that are important to them in a journal. As a class, see
who might be passionate about similar causes. Ask students to work together to create their own game or interactive activity
to raise awareness about one cause. If possible, designate a day for students to try out each others’ activities. You may wish
to discuss the idea of learning through play and how this could be part of the activity they create — see chart on next page.
Afterwards, reflect: What was the most challenging part of this activity? What was the most fun? Could students imagine
themselves designing games or other interactive activities as a career? Why or why not? How do they think learning through
play helps kids learn?