Unit 5
Week 1, Day 2
th
4 Grade
Unit Title:
America’s
Heartland
p. 262
What kind of business
is pictured here?
Why are there many
farms in this part of
the country?
(See if you can use the
words basin,
landform, transport,
and/or flourish.)
Activate Prior Knowledge
• Today you’ll read about the Midwest and how
it has grown and changed during the history of
the United States.
• What do you know about the history of the
Midwest. Tell what you know about Native
Americans, settlers, and how the US grew
larger by getting more land.
• What might cause a city to grow and flourish?
What Midwestern
cities do you
recognize?
What do you know
about these cities?
What is life like in
the Midwest? Why?
Theme Vocabulary
Knowing these words will help you answer the Theme
and Focus Questions.
• Basin
• Landform
• Transport
• Flourish
Let’s try to tell a short story about some place other
than the Midwest using the theme vocabulary. For
example: imagine you have discovered a new
planet and are describing the land and its
inhabitants.
Visualize
• Readers visualize what they read by using the
words on the page to form pictures in their
minds of the people, places, actions, and
things the author describes.
• Let’s look at the paragraph on p. 260.
This paragraph gives me many ideas about what the Midwest
looks like. I can see the images in my mind. I picture waving
grass and farm animals, such as cows and sheep. I imagine
rolling hills covered with forests.
Midwest
Let’s add key
words that
show you what
you visualize as
you read about
the Midwest.
Practice visualizing as
you read p. 262.
What do people see,
hear, feel, smell, or taste
living in different parts of
the Midwest?
Writers help readers visualize by using descriptive
and colorful language when they write. For
example, this author wrote rolling hills covered with
forests to help readers “see” the text.
•How do writers help
readers visualize?
Prepare to Read
In Chapter 1 of Tour of the Central Region, you
learned about the geography and economy of
the Midwest.
Today you’ll learn about the history and culture
of the region.
Let’s add related words to the web.
Culture
History
Midwest
As settlers began to move to the
Midwest, they cleared land, built
farms, and founded towns and
cities.
Preview and Predict
• Open to Chapter 2 of A Tour of the Central
Region. Look at the chapter title, subheads,
photographs, map, captions, and highlighted
words.
• Look at the header “The Midwest Way of Life”
and the photographs on pp 269-271. What do
you think this section will be about?
What does
this picture on
p.268 make
you think this
section will be
about?
What do the
header Midwest
Way of Life and
these pictures
make you think this
section will be
about?
Your Purpose in Reading this Chapter
• Read to find answers to the Theme Question:
What makes the Central Region special?
• You can also set your own purposes for
reading. Maybe you want to learn more about
something that looks interesting to you.
Read Chapter 2 with your partner.
This illustration of
Native Americans
hunting shows
what the land was
like before settlers
moved there.
The photograph
on p. 267 shows
homesteaders in
front of their sod
house.
What do you
visualize when
you think about
life at that time.
• With your partner summarize what
they learned about settlers in the
Midwest and how the region
flourished.
• Talk about the part of the chapter
that was most interesting to you.
• Tell your partner about a part of the
text you visualized while reading.
• With your partner list aspects of modern
culture in the Midwest. Then, as a group we’ll
discuss which part of the culture interests you
the most.
Let’s go back to the concept web and
add information from Chapter 2.
Share how the history and culture of
the Midwest makes it a special place.
How did visualizing help you
understand what you read?
Spelling and Phonics
• Practice the k, ng, and kw sounds.
• Who remembers the ways that words with
these sounds are spelled.
• Use your spelling lists to write a sentence for
each word and then read their sentences to
partners. The partners will spell each word
and give its meaning.
• Then switch roles.
Fluency
• Turn to “Homestead Act Signed” on p. 6 of
your Practice Companion. Review the article.
What was the Homestead Act?
• Today focus on phrasing as you read the
article.
• Phrasing is chunking text into small,
meaningful phrases. Phrasing helps readers
better understand what they read.
Phrasing
• Listen as I read the first sentence without phrasing.
On this momentous day President Abraham Lincoln
signed the Homestead Act into law.
• Now I’ll read the sentence and break the sentence into
phrases.
On this momentous day, President Abraham Lincoln
signed the Homestead Act into law.
What differences did you hear between the readings?
Which was easier to understand.
Now I’ll read the whole selection. Listen carefully to the
phrasing. Then we’ll read the passage together.
Wrap Up
• What’s the topic of your group’s reading
selection?
• What’s something interesting they’ve read so
far?
• What are some vocabulary words from your
group’s book?
• Do you know anything about the topics that
the other groups are reading about?
• Do you see any connections between the
books?
• How does what you’ve read answer the
week’s Focus Question?
• You can write about this in the Lead 21 eTools
21 section when you have computer time.