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ELEMENTARY UNIT/ LESSON PLANNING COMMENTARY

Your Name: Sarah Patterson
Date: 4/21/14
Unit/Lesson Title: Choral Counting & Math Centers
Grade Level and Content Area: Kindergarten, Math
Number of Students: 22
Total Amount of Time: 30 minutes
1. Learning Goals/Standards: What concepts, essential questions or key skills will be your focus? What
do you want your students to know at the end of this unit/lesson?
The key skills students will use in this lesson are identifying and writing the month, day, and year in a calendar.
Additionally, students will count from 1-40 and identify patterns in the numbers. By the end of this lessons,
students will understand what to look for in choral counting and will be able to search for patterns in the
numbers they already know. tudents at the worksheet center will se!uence and add numbers using shapes and
pictures to count. tudents at this center may alternati"ely be gi"en a worksheet on patterns where they will
practice identifying and completing shape patterns. tudents at the pattern block center will use shapes to
create a design that mimics their templates. This gi"es them the opportunity to recogni#e shapes and make
patterns.
2. Rationale: Why is this content important for your students to learn and how does it promote social
justice?
$ooking for patterns in choral counting is a "ery different lesson from the math lessons my students ha"e been
e%posed to so far, and & think this skill will prepare them to look at the bigger conceptual ideas in math that
they can apply to most number lessons they will be e%posed to in the future. & think this lesson is important as it
will pro"ide opportunities for my students who ha"e not yet memori#ed their numbers to look for patterns
"isually that do not re!uire memori#ation. The worksheet acti"ity will gi"e students additional opportunities to
practice adding and se!uencing numbers, and since many of my students still struggle with number concepts,
these acti"ities will build on those skills. 'y hope is that students will see math conceptually rather than
abstractly, gi"ing them the conceptual foundation that will help them in math in the future. tudents at the
pattern block center will use manipulati"es to engage their creati"ity while building patterns and designs with
shapes, gi"ing them an opportunity to e%press and engage themsel"es in math.
3. Identifying and supporting language needs: What are the language demands of the unit/lesson? How
do you plan to support students in meeting their English language development needs including
academic language!?
To support the needs of my English language learners, I will give students an opportunity to practice searching
for numbers in partner pairs prior to our full-class discussion to give my ELLs a chance to practice this
vocabulary on their own first. The calendar lesson is one we do daily that most of my class is familiar with,
though I will provide additional language support if needed by allowing students to volunteer responses and
provide help to their peers to search for any words they may need to use. I will also circulate to other centers as
my students who are choral counting are working independently, to ensure that all my students have
understood their directions and know they can ask peers for assistance if needed.
4. Accessing prior knowledge and building upon students backgrounds, interests and needs: How
do your choices of instructional strategies, materials and sequence of learning tasks connect with your
students" backgrounds, interests, and needs?
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(horal counting will engage students) knowledge of numbers and their counting skills. 'y students ha"e shown
an innate knowledge and understanding of patterns in lessons like writing and e"en song, so choral counting
will pro"ide a name and opportunity for students to look for patterns in math lessons. tudents are familiar with
the other two centers, and & will remind them to work in these centers as they ha"e in class before.
#$ Accommodations: What accommodations or support will you use for all students including English
%anguage %earners and students with special educational needs, i$e$ &'(E students and students with
)E*"s!? E+plain how these features of your learning and assessment tasks will provide all students
access to the curriculum and allow them to demonstrate their learning$
'y assessment will be informal, as & will assess student understanding through our informal discussion that
follows my instructions. tudents will be gi"en additional assistance to elaborate their ideas if needed, but as
this is my first lesson, this lesson is mostly an informal assessment of my students) math understanding and
what steps & should take in later math lessons to guide their learning. 'y student with an &*+ will be gi"en
additional assistance during pair-share to assess his understanding of the acti"ity before the whole-class
discussion, both by his one-on-one educational aide and myself. tudents will be reminded that they can work
together !uietly and ask peers for assistance if they need it.
. !"eor#: Which theories support your unit/lesson plan? e+plain the connections!
This lesson is supported by sociocultural learning theory as it will engage students in group discussions, where
they can learn from, model, and teach one another in pair-share and whole-class discussion. This lesson is also
supported by (ogniti"ely ,uided &nstruction, and gi"es students the opportunity to engage their minds in
lessons that do not need to be e%plicitly taught. (horal (ounting gi"es power to the students to determine their
learning and apply broader math skills to numbers they already know. The other two centers will also engage
peer collaboration as students will be encouraged to work through problems and challenges together while I
work with the Choral Counting group.
7. Reflection: (answer the following questions after the teaching of this unit/lesson) What do you feel was
successful in your lesson and why? If you could go back and teach this learning segment again to the same
group of students, what would you do differently in relation to planning, instruction, and assessment? How
could the changes improve the learning of students with different needs and characteristics?
This lesson felt like a disaster! I went into the lesson thinking that small-groups would make the lesson go
smoother, and that I would have more time to focus on each student. While this may be the case as I take on a
routine during centers, today the small-group was much harder than any experience I have had working with
groups or whole-class before. I needed to scaffold the group much more than I did. While I was able to
distribute the materials, our whiteboards and markers, quickly I did not think about how much scaffolding I
would need to do with students first to control how they used those materials once they had them. Students
began playing with the markers right away, and since I did not have a system laid out for them first, it took a
while to implement a system for students to put their markers down while I was talking or once they were
through working. A couple students started drawing with the markers, which their teacher has a strict rule
against. Talking with Andrea after the lesson, I realized just how much more time I should have spent
discussing and modeling how we would use our materials, showing students where to lay the markers down and
what the rules were when they were using the markers. Because I spent so time trying to manage how they were
using the materials after I passed them out, we did not cover nearly as many new patterns as I had hoped,
which was very discouraging.
**COMMENTARY IS REQUIRED FOR ALL UCLA ELEMENTARY FORMAL OBSERVATIONS **
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