Journey to the Ocean
Lesson 6 of 9
Objective: SWBAT describe how salmon fry change into smolts and how adults live in the ocean ecosystem.
In today's lesson, students will be learning about the adult stage of the salmon life cycle. Because I want them to connect the stages that they learned about in the previous lesson (the alevin and fry stage), I begin the lesson by reviewing the student's salmon life cycle graphic organizer. We also sing the salmon life cycle song to help students remember the order of the life stages.
Next, I read pages 8 and 9 of the salmon coloring book with the students. As they read, I remind students to use the close read annotation symbols to mark parts of the text that are important or confusing. After reading, I take time to have students share the parts of the text that were confusing so that they can get clarification from their peers or teacher.
I then ask the students to complete the graphic organizer on the salmon's journey to the sea. The graphic organizer is in the form of a comic strip. Before allowing students to work independently, I make sure to familiarize them with the format and purpose of a comic book. I do so by showing them examples of comic books and pointing out that the pictures and captions work together to tell the story. I point out that in the graphic organizer I have written a topic for each box. This scaffolds the comic book creation process for the students so that every student can tell the complete story of the salmon.