First Grade Science | Unit 8 | Seasonal Daylight
Get your Sundays back. Give your first graders a daylight mystery worth solving.
Why does an afternoon look bright in one season and dark in another? Wonder Detectives Academy: Seasonal Daylight turns that familiar question into four weeks of hands-on science—with lessons, centers, visuals, and assessments already organized for you.
This unit includes 12 thirty-minute lessons, taught three times per week across four weeks, and five reusable science centers. Students compare daylight, recognize seasonal patterns, make predictions, and explain their thinking with evidence.
Your five complete centers include:
- Daylight Strips: Align and compare visual records to explain more and less daylight.
- Same-Time Checks: Examine matching morning and evening checks across seasons.
- Seasonal Pattern Wheel: Use a pattern to predict, then check against a later record.
- Repair the Claim: Investigate four claims and use evidence to improve them.
- Our Investigation: Explore a question using two matched date pairs, shared planning, and partner discussion.
Teacher models, child-friendly directions, language supports, and reteaching guidance help you teach with confidence. Colorful classroom visuals, crayon illustrations, and an original Fox and Owl read-aloud invite students into the investigation.
Starting and final checks, answer guides, a rubric, and a reusable observation snapshot for up to 28 students help you track understanding. Shared displays, reusable cards and mats, and one investigation evidence page per pair keep printing purposeful.
The unit supports the seasonal daylight comparison focus of NGSS 1-ESS1-2. Supplied, calculated New York City sunrise and sunset records allow students to compare more and less daylight without calculating elapsed hours or requiring families to make dawn or nighttime observations.
Your download includes the 78-page complete unit and a 35-page materials companion that gathers the unit’s printable components for convenient preparation.