Lesson Seed

Unit Title: Inventions, Week 4 Day 2
Grade Level: 2nd
Essential Question: How is creative thinking an important trait?
Focus Question: How can I solve a problem? How are problems solved?
Text/Resources
If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen, Dutton Children’s Books, 2005
Reading Level: 3.3
Summary: Jack describes the kind of car he would build – one with amazing accessories and with the capability of traveling on land, in the air, and under the sea.

Standard(s)
RL.2.3: Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
RL.2.7. Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
SL.2.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 2 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
SL.2.2: Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through media.
RF.2.4. Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
W.2.1. Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use linking words (e.g., because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons, and provide a concluding statement or section.
Student Outcomes
  • Students will participate in collaborative discussions about the text.
  • Students will be able to answer questions about the characters, setting, main idea, and events in the story using details from the text and the illustrations.
  • Students express and support an opinion about the main character.

Sample Activity:
Display before and after pictures of everyday items that have been reinvented and improved e.g. a telephone and a cell phone. Have students turn and talk to one another about the importance of creative thinking in inventing and reinventing. Use a document camera and have students closely listen to and view If I Built a Car, attending to the illustrations and the words to find out how Jack uses creative thinking to change the form and function of a car.Read the text with expression to capture the rhythm and rhyme. Engage students in a collaborative discussion using any or all of these text dependent questions.
  • What made the car that Jack designed different on the outside?
  • What did Jack add to make the inside different?
  • How did Jack make a car smell better?
  • How did he change what a car can do?
  • What ideas did Jack borrow from other vehicles? What ideas were new?
Fluency: Select one or more decodable pages for students to read and reread to practice reading with accuracy and expression.
Routine writing:Model using the sentence starter to support the opinion that Jack is a creative thinker. Use text evidence to support your opinion.
The story shows that Jack is a creative thinker because______.