New teachers, and veterans, might be interested in a collaboration I'm hosting on planning for unit openers, commonly referred to as the anticipatory set for lessons. I wrote an article today on how to plan for unit openers. It's of particular interest if you're going to be working with English Language Learners. Please feel free to post questions and comments there.
Those are all excellent ideas that you have on your website. The urban animals unit with the snails looks really neat. I used to have an Apple snail in my fish tank and it was fascinating to watch him move and eat.