Instructional Unit Samples

The content specialists in the Standards and Instructional Support office have been working with educators across the state to create instructional units based on the published curriculum overview samples. These teacher-authored units include learning experiences, teacher and student resources, assessment ideas, and differentiation options.

Utilizing a Colorado-designed and refined template, the unit samples provide educators with examples of unit creation at every grade and content area of the Colorado Academic Standards. As voluntary resources for districts, the samples:

• Represent the work of teams of general education, special education, ELL, and gifted and talented educators/specialists to plan for the instruction of all students
• Offer locally-created examples of instructional units that truly reflect the diversity of Colorado schools/districts

The Colorado Instructional Unit Samples were written by and for Colorado educators as a way to understand and translate the Colorado Academic Standards-based curriculum overviews into instructional units. Users of the samples should feel free to copy, distribute and transmit the samples and to adapt them to fit their needs. Please honor the work of the Colorado educators that created these samples by providing them attribution. These samples were not intended for commercial purposes.

The resources provided within the sample curriculum units are intended to provide a comprehensive menu of resources for educators to use in a way that supports their instructional planning. Provided resources should be previewed and used with teacher discretion. Because the units contains resources outside of the CDE website, CDE cannot control changes in outside content and listing these resources does not indicate an endorsement by the Colorado Department of Education.  

Users can access the instructional units initially organized by content area or grade level through the appropriate links below.