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English lesson plan · 3rd grade (Year 4 in England) · 60 minutes

Finding and retrieving information

Reading Comprehension

CCSS RI.3.1CCSS RL.3.1England: Y3/4 Reading (retrieval)England: KS2 SATs Reading

Objective and success criteria

Students will: Finding and retrieving information.

  • I can answer questions on today's skill on my own, without help.
  • I can explain each step and say why it works.
  • I can check my answer and spot a mistake.

Before and after

Needs first: Key details

Leads to: Fact and opinion; Citing textual evidence; Which sentence from the text best supports the answer?

Materials: A short text or extract (one copy each), Highlighters, Question cards, Mini whiteboards, A short model text on the board, Printed student sheet (below).

Warm-up · 6 min

  • Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Key details). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
  • Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.
  1. Owls sleep in the day. At night they wake up and hunt for mice. When do owls hunt? (at night / in the day / after lunch / in the morning) → at nightPrompt: Find the part of the text that talks about this.
  2. The fire truck is red. It has a long ladder and a hose for water. What does the fire truck have? (a long ladder / wings / a bell tower / a sail) → a long ladderPrompt: Find the part of the text that talks about this.
  3. Dev lost his tooth at school. He put it under his pillow that night. Where did Dev put his tooth? (under his pillow / in a cup / on the table / in his bag) → under his pillowPrompt: Find the part of the text that talks about this.

Hook · 6 min

  • Read the first lines of a short text aloud and ask what students predict will happen and why.
  • Share the objective: Finding and retrieving information. Read the success criteria together.

I do: model it · 12 min

  • Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
  • Example: Hedgehogs are covered in about 5,000 spines. When they are scared, they curl into a tight ball so that only the spines show. What do hedgehogs do when they are scared?
  • Step 1: The answer is stated directly in the text.
  • Step 2: So the answer is: curl into a ball
  • Answer: curl into a ball
  • Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

We do: guided practice · 12 min

  • Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
  • Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.
  1. The town library is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. It is closed on Sundays. When does the library close on Saturdays? (9 a.m. / 2 p.m. / 5 p.m. / It is closed all day.) → 2 p.m.Prompt: Find the part of the text that talks about this.
  2. Hedgehogs are covered in about 5,000 spines. When they are scared, they curl into a tight ball so that only the spines show. What do hedgehogs do when they are scared? (curl into a ball / make a loud noise / dig a hole / run up a tree) → curl into a ballPrompt: Find the part of the text that talks about this.

You do: independent practice · 17 min

  • Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
  • Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 8 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

Exit ticket · 7 min

  • Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.

Watch out for

  • Answering from memory or opinion instead of evidence in the text.
  • Copying a long quote without explaining what it shows.

Support and stretch

Support

  • Review first: Key details.
  • Use concrete materials: a short text or extract (one copy each).
  • Give the first step of each question, or a partly worked example to finish.
  • Pair with a confident partner for the guided practice.

Stretch

  • Move on to: Fact and opinion; Citing textual evidence; Which sentence from the text best supports the answer?.
  • Explain a common mistake in writing and how to fix it.
  • Write a word problem that uses today's skill, then solve a partner's.

Homework and more practice

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/english/grade-3.

Free lesson plan from eurekami.com/lesson-plan-builder

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Finding and retrieving information

Name

Date

Score/ 8

The Lemonade Stand

Marcus wanted a new bike helmet, but it cost twenty dollars. He had only five. "Why not set up a lemonade stand?" suggested his grandmother. She helped him squeeze a big bowl of lemons and stir in sugar and cold water. Marcus painted a sign that said LEMONADE – 50 CENTS. On Saturday morning, Marcus put his table at the end of the driveway. For the first hour, nobody came. Cars zoomed past. Marcus began to think it was a silly idea. Then he noticed that people were walking to the park across the road for a football match. He picked up his sign and moved the table right next to the park gate. Within ten minutes, a line had formed. By lunchtime, the jug was empty. Marcus counted his coins. He had earned exactly fifteen dollars. With the five he already had, it was enough. "You did it!" said Grandma. "We did it," said Marcus. "And next time, I'll think about where the customers are before I start."

  1. Question 1

    Read "The Lemonade Stand". How much did the helmet cost?

    • A. fifteen dollars
    • B. twenty dollars
    • C. fifty cents
    • D. five dollars

The Camera in the Hedge

For my birthday, Aunt Jo gave me a wildlife camera. It is small and green, and it takes a photo whenever something moves in front of it. I strapped it to the fence post at the bottom of our garden, pointing at a gap in the hedge. The first morning, I ran outside in my pyjamas to check it. There were forty-two photos! Most of them were of leaves blowing in the wind. One was of our cat, Biscuit, looking very surprised. But on the second night, something different appeared. At 11:14 p.m., a hedgehog shuffled out of the hedge. At 11:16 p.m., it was sniffing at the flower bed. At 11:20 p.m., it was gone. I wanted to know where it went, so I read about hedgehogs in a library book. I learned that a hedgehog can walk more than a kilometre in one night, looking for beetles and worms. Walls and fences with no gaps can stop it from finding enough food. Dad and I cut a small hole, about the size of a CD case, at the bottom of our fence. Our neighbour, Mr Okafor, made one in his fence too. Now the hedgehog can travel from garden to garden. Last night, the camera caught the hedgehog again. This time, it was squeezing through our new hole, heading for Mr Okafor's garden. I think it was saying thank you.

  1. Question 2

    Read "The Camera in the Hedge". Where did the narrator put the camera?

    • A. on the garden shed roof
    • B. inside the kitchen
    • C. on a fence post at the bottom of the garden
    • D. in Mr Okafor's garden

Why Do Leaves Change in Autumn?

In many parts of the world, autumn turns forests into blazes of yellow, orange and red. But where do these bright shades come from? The answer is hidden inside every leaf. During spring and summer, leaves are busy making food for the tree. To do this, they use sunlight, water and air. A green substance called chlorophyll captures the energy from sunlight. There is so much chlorophyll in a leaf that it hides all the other shades. As autumn arrives, the days grow shorter and there is less sunlight. Trees such as maples and oaks begin to get ready for winter. They stop making chlorophyll. As the green fades away, the yellows and oranges that were in the leaf all along begin to show. Some trees, such as certain maples, also make a brand-new red substance in autumn. This is why some leaves turn bright red or purple. Finally, the tree seals off each leaf where it joins the branch. The leaf dries out and falls. Without leaves, the tree uses less water during the cold winter months. In spring, new green leaves will grow, and the cycle will begin again.

  1. Question 3

    Read "Why Do Leaves Change in Autumn?". Why can't we see yellow and orange in leaves during summer?

    • A. The sun bleaches them.
    • B. They are not made until autumn.
    • C. The green chlorophyll hides them.
    • D. Rain washes them away.

Lady Montagu and the Smallpox Gamble

In the early eighteenth century, smallpox was one of the most feared diseases in Europe. It killed around three in every ten people it infected and left many survivors scarred or blind. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu knew its cruelty personally: the disease had killed her brother and marked her own face. In 1717, while living in Constantinople (now Istanbul), where her husband was the British ambassador, she observed a remarkable practice. Local women would take a small amount of material from a mild smallpox sore and scratch it into the skin of a healthy person. The person usually developed a mild illness and was then protected for life. This process was called variolation. Montagu was so impressed that she had her young son variolated. When she returned to England, she campaigned to spread the practice, despite fierce opposition. Some doctors resented being taught by a woman; others distrusted a practice from abroad. To win public confidence, Montagu had her daughter variolated in front of physicians from the royal court. Variolation was not without risk: a small number of patients developed severe smallpox, and they could infect others. Decades later, in 1796, Edward Jenner developed a safer method using cowpox, a related but much milder disease. His method, called vaccination after the Latin word for cow, gradually replaced variolation. Smallpox was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. Jenner is often called the father of vaccination, but the story began with the courage of a woman who noticed what others had overlooked.

  1. Question 4

    Read "Lady Montagu and the Smallpox Gamble". What were TWO reasons some people opposed Montagu?

    • A. It used cowpox and caused scars.
    • B. She was a woman, and the practice came from abroad.
    • C. It was too expensive and too slow.
    • D. Jenner disagreed and the king banned it.

  2. Question 5

    Read "Lady Montagu and the Smallpox Gamble". Where did Montagu first observe variolation?

    • A. in London
    • B. in Jenner's laboratory
    • C. in Constantinople
    • D. at the royal court

The Clever Octopus

If you wanted to design an intelligent animal from scratch, you probably would not start with a creature that has no bones, three hearts and blue blood. Yet the octopus is one of the most remarkable problem-solvers in the animal kingdom. In laboratories, octopuses have learned to unscrew jar lids to reach crabs inside. Some have escaped from their tanks at night, crept across the floor to a neighbouring tank to eat the fish, and then returned home before morning. In the wild, veined octopuses have been filmed collecting coconut shells, carrying them across the seabed and assembling them into a portable shelter – one of the few known examples of tool use by an invertebrate. What makes this intelligence so surprising is how different the octopus brain is from ours. About two-thirds of its roughly 500 million nerve cells are not in its head at all but in its eight arms. Each arm can taste, touch and even make simple decisions on its own. Scientists are still debating what it might feel like to be an animal whose thinking is spread throughout its body. The octopus's cleverness may be linked to its lifestyle. Without a shell for protection, it must outwit predators by hiding, changing colour in a fraction of a second, or squeezing through gaps no bigger than its beak. Survival depends on flexible thinking. Strangely, most octopuses live only one or two years. They have no parents to teach them and usually die soon after laying eggs. Every skill they show, they must largely work out for themselves.

  1. Question 6

    Read "The Clever Octopus". Where are most of an octopus's nerve cells?

    • A. in its head
    • B. in its beak
    • C. in its arms
    • D. in its three hearts

The Vault at the Top of the World

On a frozen island in the Arctic Ocean, between Norway and the North Pole, a narrow concrete doorway sticks out of the side of a mountain. Behind it, a tunnel leads deep into the rock. This is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and it holds more than a million packets of seeds from almost every country on Earth. Why keep seeds in a mountain? Farmers all over the world depend on many different varieties of crops, such as types of rice that survive floods or kinds of wheat that resist disease. If a variety disappears because of war, natural disaster or simple accident, it may be lost for ever. The vault is a back-up copy, like saving a precious file in two places. The location was chosen with care. The vault is high enough above sea level to stay dry even if ice caps melt. Inside, the seeds are kept at about minus 18 degrees Celsius, cold enough to keep many of them alive for decades or even centuries. The surrounding rock is permanently frozen, so even if the power failed, the seeds would stay cold. The vault opened in 2008. In 2015, it was used for the first time: scientists who had lost access to their own seed bank during a war in Syria withdrew samples, grew new plants and later sent fresh seeds back to the vault. The back-up had worked. No one hopes the vault will be needed often. But like a fire extinguisher in a school corridor, it is reassuring to know it is there.

  1. Question 7

    Read "The Vault at the Top of the World". When was the vault used for the first time?

    • A. in 1956
    • B. in 2015
    • C. it has never been used
    • D. in 2008

Inside a Volcano

Deep beneath our feet, the Earth is extremely hot – hot enough to melt rock. This melted rock is called magma. Because magma is lighter than the solid rock around it, it slowly rises upward. Sometimes it collects in a huge underground pool called a magma chamber. A volcano forms where magma finds a way to the surface. When the pressure in the magma chamber becomes too great, the magma bursts out through cracks or vents. Once it reaches the surface, it is called lava. Over time, layers of cooled lava and ash can build up to form a mountain. Most volcanoes are found near the edges of tectonic plates, the giant slabs of rock that make up the Earth's outer layer. More than half of the world's active volcanoes surround the Pacific Ocean, in a horseshoe-shaped zone known as the Ring of Fire. Scientists sort volcanoes into three groups. Active volcanoes have erupted recently and could erupt again. Dormant volcanoes have not erupted for a very long time but might wake up in the future. Extinct volcanoes are not expected to erupt ever again. Although eruptions can be deadly, volcanoes also bring benefits. Volcanic ash breaks down into rich soil, which is why many farms are found on the slopes of old volcanoes. In some countries, such as Iceland, the heat from underground is used to warm homes and produce electricity.

  1. Question 8

    Read "Inside a Volcano". A volcano has not erupted for a very long time but might erupt again. What kind is it?

    • A. tectonic
    • B. extinct
    • C. dormant
    • D. active

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Answer key: Finding and retrieving information

  1. 1. B. twenty dollars

  2. 2. C. on a fence post at the bottom of the garden

  3. 3. C. The green chlorophyll hides them.

  4. 4. B. She was a woman, and the practice came from abroad.

  5. 5. C. in Constantinople

  6. 6. C. in its arms

  7. 7. B. in 2015

  8. 8. C. dormant