Cell Structures and Functions are a favorite topic for me. Students love looking at cells under a microscope and students love

These activities are created to incorporate reading and writing into the Science curriculum. You can click any link or image in this post to grab the printables and activities for yourself.
The informational text in this set is written to best fit the 5th and 6th grade reading levels. This lesson set is designed to be on level for 5th grade and covers standards from 5th, 7th, and 8th grade science. This is a helpful resource for ESL and low level eighth graders.
Attention Grabber: Cell “Part it together” Race
Lesson Activities:
Word Wall Builder Activities
Reading with Graphic Organizer: Cell Structure and Function with a Venn Diagram (Plant Cells vs. Animal Cells)
Writing with Key Terms: Cell Structure and Function
Lab/ Activity: Observing an onion cell with Lab Observation Activity
Formative Assessment: Labeling the Cell Diagrams
Writing Extension Activity
Daily Science Starters: Cell Structure and Function
A Sample Lesson Plan for the week is provided in the ready-made lesson set. You will get all of the activities and printables for the week, too.


Great way to prepare for the STAAR Science test!!
Don’t miss out on the Cell Structure and Function Lesson Supplement with interactive notebook input & output activities, word wall cards, vocabulary activity pages, critical thinking formative assessment, analyzing data, and project building a comparative cell model!
This lesson has just been updated with DIGITAL Google Slides version!!

⭐️ Easy to follow!
⭐️ Fun for the students!
For a fully enriched week of learning, you will love adding the supplement to this lesson set!

This supplement is designed to take student learning and engagement to the next level with critical thinking and model building! This supplement will be a great addition to any lesson you are already using to teach your students about cell structure and function.
Your students can go deeper in their learning by including vocabulary practice, anchor charts which double as doodle notes, interactive notebook input and output activities, and critical thinking through analyzing data, building an analytical model, and supporting a claim about their learning.



I hope this helps give you some ideas and resources for planning your Cell unit!! I added some more info below if you want to know more about the standards covered and what some teachers have to say about these lesson activities.
Standards covered in these lesson sets:
Common Core
Lessons are aligned with the Common Core State Standards and the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.2 Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text; provide an accurate summary of the text distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.4 Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 6–8 texts and topics.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.7 Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text with a version of that information expressed visually (e.g., in a flowchart, diagram, model, graph, or table).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.9 Compare and contrast the information gained from experiments, simulations, video, or multimedia sources with that gained from reading a text on the same topic.
NGSS
MS-LS1-2.
Develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and ways parts of cells contribute to the function.
TEKS (STAAR)
§112.19. Science, Grade 7,
(12) Organisms and environments. The student knows that living systems at all levels of organization demonstrate the complementary nature of structure and function. The student is expected to:
(C) recognize levels of organization in plants and animals, including cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, and organisms;
What other educators are saying about this lesson set:
This is a great resource for students who struggle with visualizing concepts. They really enjoyed the simple, colorful presentation — Cheryl W.
Great resource and easy to prepare and use. My students were very engaged and driven by the resource information. — Jerry M.
This is an awesome resource for in person learning but difficult to use for virtual learning. Although I won’t get much use out of it this go around, I definitely plan to use it in the future. — Kacie I.