Spring 2016

Sem I-ECED372

LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

Lauren McDaniel
Christy Mozingo
March 16th, 2016 at 9:00 A.M.
February 26th, 2016

TITLE OF LESSON St. Patricks Day Shamrock Search

CONTEXT OF LESSON

My cooperating teacher thought that this would be appropriate because her students are currently
working making their own rhymes, and identifying both beginning and ending sounds.
When I was in the classroom observing I noticed that the students were making their own rhymes and
then telling them to each other. I also noticed that the students seem to need a little more work on
their beginning and ending sounds, and I believe that this activity will help them cement that
knowledge even further. At this age children learn best by looking at pictures and coming up with
their answer based off the picture because that causes them to think harder about the question that
they are trying to answer.
This fits into the curriculum sequence because the students right now are working on finding a word
that rhymes with a word that they are already given, and they are also working on identifying the
beginning and ending sounds in words. This also fits into the curriculum sequence because the
students are getting ready to study St. Patricks Day and my activity directly corresponds with St.
Patricks Day.
OBJECTIVES AND ASSESSMENT
Developmental Objectives
1. The students will find a hidden
shamrock and once they find it they will
tell me a word that rhymes with the
picture on the shamrock.

2. The students will find a hidden

shamrock and once they find it they will
tell me what the beginning and ending
sound of the picture on the shamrock is.

Assessment
I will assess student performance by looking at whether or not the student
was able to identify a word that correctly rhymed with the word that they
were given on the original shamrock. The language that will inform my
assessment will be a word that correctly rhymes with the word that I gave
them. They will either respond confidently or unconfidently and that will
also inform my assessment. I will collect this data by writing down when
the students give me a correct or incorrect response. I will keep a tally of
how many students give me a correct response, and how many students
give me an incorrect response. This will give me a good gauge of how the
class as a whole is performing in this activity. I will collect this data
during the activity on the attached data collection sheet.
I will assess student performance by looking at whether or not the
students were able to identify the beginning and ending sound on the
word that was given to them on the original shamrock. The language that
will inform my assessment will be hearing the correct beginning sound
and the correct ending sound. I will collect this data by writing down
when the students gives me a correct or incorrect response. I will keep a
tally of how many students give me a correct response, and how many
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students give me an incorrect response. This will be a good gauge for me

to see how the class did during this activity. I will collect this data during
the activity on the attached data collection sheet.
COLLECTION OF ASSESSMENT DATA
Look at the attached data collection sheet to see my assessment data.
RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (K & 1) OR FOUNDATION BLOCKS (Preschool)
K.4e. The student will identify pictures according to shared beginning and or ending sounds.
K.4b. The student will identify and produce words that rhyme.
MATERIALS NEEDED
1. Green Construction Paper: I will be providing this.
2. Laminated Instruction Card: I will be providing this.
3. Laminated Station Name Card: I will be providing this.
4. Laminated Shamrocks: I will be providing this.
5. Camera: I will be providing this.
PROCEDURE

Preparation of learning environment- In order to set up for this activity I will first come into
the classroom and pick the space that I am going to use for this activity. I will need to pick a
space that is big enough for the students to hide the shamrocks in without being too crowded. I
will then take the shamrocks and put them onto a nearby table so that I will be able to easily grab
them and give them to the students. I will then rope off the area that the students are allowed to
hide the shamrocks in. I will then designate the area where the students are supposed to sit in
order to wait for the shamrock to be hidden. After all of this I will be done getting the learning
environment prepped.
Engagement and introduction of the lesson- I will introduce the activity by asking the children
if they have ever heard of a shamrock before. I will then ask them if they know what a shamrock
looks like. After we have talked about what a shamrock looks like and what it stands for I will
explain the game and its rules. I will tell the students that one of them gets to be it. The student
who is it gets to hide the first shamrock while the other students sit on the ground with their eyes
closed and count to 20. Once the it person has hidden the shamrock the students who are
sitting on the floor will start looking for it. The student who finds the shamrock will either have
to look at the picture and tell me another word that rhymes with that picture, or they will have to
tell me the beginning and ending sound of the word that represents the picture. After I have told
them the rules we will start the game. I will get the childrens attention by using the transition of
class class and then they say yes yes. I will arrange for taking turns by having the rule that you
get to hide the shamrock next if you are able to find the shamrock and give me a rhyming word
or the beginning or ending sound of a word. I will build on their previous experiences by telling
them that we are going to be doing an activity that will demonstrate their knowledge of rhyming
words and beginning and ending sounds.
Implementation of the lesson- I will first ask the students if they know what a shamrock is. I
will then ask if they know what a shamrock looks like. After we discuss these two questions I
will then show them what the shamrock looks like so that they wont be confused when trying to
find it. I will then explain the directions of the game that we are going to play. I will tell them
that I am going to pick one child to be it first. The person who is it is going to hide the shamrock
while the other students close their eyes. In order the keep the students with their eyes closed
engaged I will have them count to 20 because that is the amount of time that the it person will
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have to hide the shamrock. Once we say that we are ready the students who had their eyes closed
will open their eyes and begin looking for the shamrock. Once the child finds the shamrock they
will have to either give me a word that rhymes with the word on the shamrock, or they will have
to tell me what the beginning and the ending sounds are in the word that is on the shamrock.
Once the student has done that they will get to be it and hide the next shamrock. I think that
these directions and questions will help extend their learning.
Closure- I will explain to the students that they when they hear the sound of a bell going off that
that means that they need to stop what they are doing and listen to the directions. Before I send
the students off to the next group I will go over with them why the activity was important, and
why we did what we did for the activity. I will then transition the children to their next activity
by using a transition that is already used in the classroom. I will say class class and then the
students will respond yes yes. After that I will tell them what group they are moving onto next,
and they will then move to those groups.
Clean-up- I will have the students help me clean up the station between groups because the next
group will need the shamrocks to not already be hidden. It wont take long to clean up because
all they will have to do it hand me the shamrocks that they have in their possession.

DIFFERENTIATION
For this activity I will be basing it off of the childrens ability to come up with a word that rhymes with the original
word that I give them. I will also be basing this activity off of their ability to identify the beginning and ending sounds
of different kinds of words. For the kids who need to be challenged by this activity I will create words on the
shamrocks that are a little more difficult and that fit where they are in English at that moment. For the children who
need more support and help during this activity I will put words on the shamrocks that will support where they are
currently in English. There is one student in this class who has a processing delay, so I will need to do more to support
his learning abilities. The teacher told us that he does best by watching the other students first before he participates, so
in order to accommodate this I will have him watch the first round so that he sees what to do before he participates. I
believe that the ability group that will be the most challenging is the red group because they are the lowest group of
students. This is going to be challenging because they arent as far along academically as all the other students so they
may not be able to do the activity as well. I believe that the ability group that will be the least challenging is the pink
group because they are he highest group of students. This is going to be the least challenging because they are the
furthest along academically so they should be able to do the activity quite easily. I think that all of these ideas will help
to differentiate the lessons between the different ability groups.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
One of the things that could go wrong with this lesson has to do with the childrens excitement levels and behavior. I
think that because this activity is so exciting and fun the students might get loud and rowdy and disrupt the other
groups. I think that in order to fix this I will tell the students that we need to make sure that we do this activity in our
quiet voices because we dont want to disturb the other groups and keep them from learning. One of the other things
that could go wrong is that the students could get confused with the activity and the lesson. In order to stop this from
happening I will make sure that I explain the lesson thoroughly before we begin. Another thing that could go wrong
with this lesson is that the students might not be able to tell me a rhyming word or the beginning and ending sound of
the word. If this happens I will give the student an example of a rhyming word or the beginning and ending sound
using a different word than what is on their shamrock. Something else that could go wrong is if the student looks at the
picture on the shamrock and doesnt know what it is. I will solve this problem by telling the student what the picture is
so that they can answer my question. Something else that could go wrong is if the student gets confused between
rhyming and beginning/ending sounds. If this happens I will just quickly explain to the student using another word
what rhyming is and what the beginning/ending sounds are. I think that this is what could go wrong with the lesson,
and I believe that I have solid solutions to fix these problems.
A COPY OF THE DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT MUST BE ATTACHED TO THIS DOCUMENT.

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Lesson Plan Reflection

As soon as possible after teaching your lesson, reflect on the experience. Use the questions/prompts below to guide
your thinking. Be thorough in your reflection and use specific examples to support your insights.

A. How did your actual lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes you made & explain why you made
them. Be thorough & specific in your description. (3 pts)

B. Evaluate the impact of the lesson based on your plan for assessing learning and the individual data you
collected on each objective. Cite multiple examples of student behavior & language that document your
conclusions. (8 pts)

C. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better or more
thorough way if you were to present this lesson again. (2 pts)

D. If you were the teacher in this classroom, what follow-up experiences would you plan? (Develop your answer
based on the data that was collected and your observations during the lesson.) (2 pts)

E1. Share something you learned about young children as a result of planning and conducting the activity. Relate
this new knowledge to principles of child development or appropriate curriculum from your ELED 308 and
ECED 372 courses. (2 pts)

E2. Share something you learned about teaching as a result of planning and conducting this activity. Describe
how you will apply this new knowledge to upcoming opportunities for developing learning experiences for
children. (6 pts)

E3. Share something you learned about yourself as a result of planning & conducting this activity? (2 pts)

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