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School: Werner Elementary School Grade Level: Kindergarten Content Area: Writing, Science, Math
Lesson Idea/Topic and Rational/Relevance: Students are currently working on practicing appropriate
writing conventions including word spacing, capitalization, punctuation, and phonetic writing. This lesson will
provide students with the opportunity to practice these writing strategies by developing their own sentence
facts based on a lesson about the planet Uranus. This lesson is part of the second week of a two week long
planet unit where students’ facts and art projects will be compiled into their own “Planet Fact Book”.
Student Profile: The class is made up of 19 learners of varying abilities and needs. One student has difficulty
with letter formation and is still an emergent writer that requires modelling and support. One student is an
English Language Learner that needs more scaffolding in support in creating ideas for sentences and
transferring these ideas to paper accurately. Other students in the class are transitional writers that are
acquiring understanding of appropriate writing conventions such as word spacing and upper/lowercase letter
use. Some students have strong control over sentence convention and phonetic writing and are needing to
challenge themselves in their writing by adding more detail. Students have continued to express great
engagement in this unit and using planets as a platform for practicing writing concepts has shown to be very
effective in getting students motivated in their writing. Students have been engaged in this unit for two weeks,
so following this lesson’s procedure has become more of a routine for them because of their opportunity for
continued practice.
Content Standard(s) addressed by this lesson: (Write Content Standards directly from the standard)
Science
Standard 3: Earth Systems Science
The Sun provides heat and light to Earth.
Mathematics
Standard 1: Number Sense, Properties, and Operations
Whole numbers can be used to name, count, represent, and order quantity.
Students can:
b. Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing
about and supply some information about the topic.
d. With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed.
Students can:
a. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
i. Print many upper- and lowercase letters.
ii. Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.
iii. Form regular plural nouns orally by adding /s/ or /es/ (e.g., dog, dogs; wish, wishes).
iv. Understand and use question words (interrogatives) (e.g., who, what, where, when, why, how).
v. Use the most frequently occurring prepositions (e.g., to, from, in, out, on, off, for, of, by, with).
vi. Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.
vii. Use proper spacing between words.
viii. Write left to right and top to bottom
ix. Use appropriate pencil grip
b. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
i. Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I.
ii. Recognize and name end punctuation.
iii. Write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).
iv. Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.
Students can:
a. Investigate, explain, and describe that the Sun provides heat and light to Earth (and other planets)
Students can:
a. Count to determine the number of objects.
i. Apply the relationship between numbers and quantities and connect counting to cardinality.
ii. Count and represent objects.
Inquiry Questions: (Essential questions relating knowledge at end of the unit of instruction, select applicable questions from standard)
Given an interactive lesson about the planet Uranus, the student will create a one or two sentence fact about the planet Uranus based on the information they
have learned, accurately using phonetic spelling strategies, word spacing, and appropriate punctuation and capitalization usage.
List of Assessments: (Write the number of the learning targets associated with each assessment)
2. Students will use writing conventions including word spacing, punctuation, capitalization, and appropriate pencil grip/writ ing directionality. If this is not
done independently, guided editing through writer’s checklist will prompt students to make these edits in their writing.
4. Students will use a word bank of important terms or phonetic spelling strategies to sound out unknown words.
5. Students will incorporate facts they learned about the planet Uranus into their sentence(s) fact (possibly incorporating the planet’s cardinality, i.e. Uranus is
the seventh planet from the Sun).
In this lesson, every student was able to write a sentence fact (or several sentences) using the information they had
learned about the planet Uranus. They also demonstrated a growth in their abilities to include necessary writing
conventions in their sentences, requiring less prompting and guidance. Many students experimented with new
terms and challenged themselves with writing more facts and details in those facts. They followed the lesson’s
procedure fluidly and showed engagement in the lesson even in the second week of the unit. Students have shown
more independence in editing, re-reading, planning, and sharing their own writing.
2. What changes, omissions, or additions to the lesson would you make if you were to teach again?
Students are extremely excited about this lesson and this energy can make it challenging for some students to focus
on the whole group lesson about the planet. In the next lesson, I want to start the lesson by reminding students of
behavioral expectations as well as their writing expectations. By reminding students that the learning from the
lesson is what is needed to create their own facts, it can promote more positive engagement and redirect some
challenging behaviors during the whole-group lesson.
3. What do you envision for the next lesson? (Continued practice, reteach content, etc.)
The next lesson will be the final lesson in this unit where students will learn and write about the planet Neptune. In
this lesson, I will start by reminding students of the writer’s checklist expectations, the procedure for planning out
ideas before writing, and by explaining behavioral expectations during the whole group lesson (listening, sitting
crisscross apple sauce, raising hand before speaking if they have questions/comments) in order to promote positive
engagement. Additionally, since it will be the last lesson of the unit, there will also be a time scheduled later in the
school day for the Book Celebration, where students will assemble their fact pages into their final Planet Fact
book. I will then facilitate two partner rotations with the class, assigning each student a partner and then rotating to
another partner to share their book with their peers. As established in the Lucy Calkins writing curriculum, Book
Celebrations allow students to take pride in their work, to make their learning and hard work meaningful, and to
encourage their continued writing growth. I believe that this will be a great way to conclude this unit. Additionally,
I will record more assessment data using anecdotal notes of their writing in order to see their growth over the
course of the unit.
4. If you used co-teaching, would you use the same co-teaching strategy for this lesson if you were to teach it again? Were there
additional co-teaching strategies used during the lesson not planned for initially? Please explain.
My mentor teacher and I have utilized the station teaching co-teaching model for this writing unit and it has been
shown to provide students with extensive support, interventions, and modifications to fit their specific needs. It
also has given me the opportunity to take detailed notes regarding their abilities, needs, and their growth every day
because of the small group stations. These notes will provide valuable data to include in report cards, parent
letters, and to inform future writing lessons.