Cali Reynolds West Valley Elementary

Animal Defense Mechanisms: Introduction

Content Objectives

 Common Core
o RI.4.1: Refer to details and examples in a text when
explaining what the text says explicitly and when
drawing inferences from the text.
o W.4.8: Recall relevant information from experiences or
engage students’ interest in specific

gather relevant information from print and digital

sources; take notes and categorize information, and
What will I do to

provide a list of sources.

learning goals?

 Classroom:
o I can infer about animal defense mechanisms based on
information in pictures and text.
o I can support my inferences with details and examples
from pictures and text.

Language Objectives

 Students will be able to verbally communicate/converse with a

partner about what they infer about animal defenses.
 Students will be able to fill out the assigned graphic organizer
with notes about each station they visit.
Cali Reynolds West Valley Elementary

 To begin this lesson, I will introduce the topic, animal defense

mechanisms. We will go over the word defense and mechanism
to explain that a defense mechanism is a way for animals to
What will I do to help students interact with new knowledge?

protect themselves. I will remind students of a book we

previously read in small groups about animal adaptations. I will
ask a few to share what they remember from that book about
how animals can protect themselves.
 Once students background knowledge about animal defense
mechanisms has been activated, I will introduce the task for the
lesson.
o “Today you are going to be making some inferences
about animals and the defense mechanisms they have.
Does anyone know what the word infer means?”
 We will then discuss how to making an inference means you use
what you know (background knowledge), and what the
text/pictures say, to explain or figure out something the author
does not specifically tell us.
Cali Reynolds West Valley Elementary

 At this point I will introduce the station walk to students. There

What will I do to help students practice?

will be ten stations around the room, each station will have
either text or pictures about various animal defense
mechanisms. Students will be prompted at each station to
make an inference based on what they read in the text or see in
the picture.
 To help students better understand the task, I will explicitly
model the procedure they will be following on the first station. I
will have students follow along and fill in their graphic organizer
with me.

What will I do if they still don’t get

or they need more?
 As students
move from
What will I do to deepen students’ understanding at their level of learning?

station to
station they
will be filling
out a graphic
organizer.
They will
make note
of
interesting
facts or
things they
notice. They
will also
record their
inference.
This graphic
organizer
will then be
used in a
whole group
discussion
Cali Reynolds West Valley Elementary

about animal
defense
mechanisms.
 To close this
lesson, we
will have a  If students are having a
whole group hard time
discussion understanding the task,
about what I will model it again. If
they were they are still struggling I
able to infer will know that we need
about animal more practice with
defense inferring. I will model it
mechanisms. more explicitly and
For example, explain the though
we will process of connecting
discuss what things I already know,
specifically to things in the text.
they help
protect
animals from.
To participate
in this
discussion will
need to have
their notes
from the
assigned
graphic
organizer.
Cali Reynolds West Valley Elementary

What will I do next with the data I now
have?
 Because this lesson is introductory, everything assigned within
it is for formative use. Students will be referring to this graphic
organizer throughout the unit and will be placing it in an animal
research journal they will be keeping. They will also use the
notes they take to help them pick an animal to further study in
the future.

 I will use this information to ensure that students completed

the assigned tasks and that their inferencing was on base. If I
notice that student inferences were way off base, I will know to
do more modeling and explicit teaching of the skill.