Systems Book 1: Exploration, Culture, and Ecology (Differentiated Curriculum for Grade 4)

What would happen if we had automobiles, but no roads? Light bulbs, but no electricity? Our world functions smoothly when systems are in place. Transportation, health care, and education are all organized into systems that we depend upon daily. The Systems Differentiated Curriculum Kit provides exciting activities to help students discover the systems that exist all around them.

The books in Prufrock's new Differentiated Curriculum Kits employ a differentiated, integrated curriculum based on broad themes. This all-in-one curriculum helps teachers save planning time, ensure compliance with national standards, and most importantly, pique their students' natural excitement and interest in discovery. By participating in the wide variety of activities in the Differentiated Curriculum Kit for Grade 4, students will discover the systems around them and gain a lifelong desire to learn.

In Systems Book 1: Exploration, Culture, and Ecology, students will discover the solar system, the water cycle, and their family history (among many other things). Students will learn that systems may provide a way to organize and categorize things. Systems also may provide a common denominator for people to understand topics. Students will explore systems in their everyday surroundings, such as in their culture, language, transportation, and celebrations. They also will study the metric system and apply it to exploration of the solar system.

Other books in the Systems series include Systems Book 2: Settlement, Currency, and Measurement and Systems Book 3: Economics, Climate, and Comparisons. Each book contains detailed lesson plans, reproducible activity sheets, and assessment tools.

This curriculum unit makes use of the following great children's literature books:

• A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park; and
• biographies of Helen Keller and Louis Braille.