Lesson Plan: Literacy/Social Studies--Pets 1 (Monday, 3/7)

Understanding Goal:
Students will understand that pets impact our lives in a variety of positive ways.
Performance Goal:
Students will produce a short written response detailing their understanding of the effects pets
have on people.
Standards:
CC.1.5.3.A Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions on grade level topics and
texts, building on others ideas and expressing their own clearly. CC.1.4.3.X Write routinely over
extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a
single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Materials and Preparation:
Every Living Thing by Cynthia Rylant
Slideshow with facts about the effects of pets on humans
Pictures of teachers and students pets
Students will be instructed to bring in pictures of their pets (if they dont have a
pet, they can bring a picture of their family members pet, friends pet, etc.) with a
short paragraph about the pet
Animal journal
Classroom Arrangement and Management Issues:
1. Classroom arrangement Students will begin on carpet for read aloud and slideshow.
Students will then move to their desks to share their pets with their classmates (they will share
only with the classmates who sit at their table).
Students will work individually at their desks on their animal journal entries.
2. Distribution of materials Students will have brought pictures of their pets from home; the students will store these
pictures in their team folder until this portion of the lesson.
Teachers will distribute animal journals and explain that the students will be working in them
daily over the next two weeks.
Teachers will instruct students to put their animal journals in their cubbies when the lesson is
over.
3. Management concerns Before beginning the lesson, teachers will highlight key expectations for behavior (active
listeners, raising hands to share, etc.).
Teachers will explain/model how students will share within their groups to alleviate any difficulty
with group discussion.
Teachers will time each round so that each student gets to share for a specific and equal
amount of time.
Plan:
1. Hook (15 minutes)
Bring students to the carpet as they return from lunch.
Begin read aloud of Every Living Thing by Cynthia Rylant.

At the end, think-pair-share in response to question: What did you notice about the
relationship between the pet and the human?
Summarize key point: pet had a very meaningful and positive impact on its owner.
Show brief slideshow about the positive effects pets have on their owners.
Transition by telling students that they will get to consider real life, personal examples of
how pets have positive impacts on people.
Model the sharing activity by showing students pictures of our own pets and briefly
sharing how our pets have impacted us.
Dismiss students back to their seats.

2. Body (25 minutes)

Explain the rules for the sharing activity: We will time each students turn. The student
has two minutes to share about their pet. Then, the other students have one minute to
ask the student questions. The teachers will announce when time is up each round.
Designate which student will begin.
Start the timer--projected on the SMART Board.
Walk around and monitor groups as they discuss. Interfere in a group only if things are
going poorly (i.e. students are off-topic or not sharing).
Each new round, designate which students will be sharing.
3. Closure (20 minutes)
Distribute the animal journals.
Explain how the students will care for their journals and how they will be assessed journals will be checked each day to make sure some work has been completed, but
they will not be officially graded until the end of the two weeks.
Read response prompt aloud: What did you learn about pets and how they make people
feel?
Monitor students as they write; check in with those who need more support.
Assessment of goals/objectives:
To check for student understanding of the impact that pets have on humans lives, we will listen
for student comments in response to the read aloud, listen to student comments and questions
during the sharing activity, and read students written responses in their journals.
To demonstrate mastery of the objective, students should make comments (verbal and written)
that reflect a variety of the positive impacts pets have on people. Examples of comments that
would reflect mastery of the goal: I learned people with dogs are healthier because they walk
their dogs and play with them at the park. I noticed a lot of my classmates shared that their
pets make them happy and give them someone to play with. Students should also at least
partially complete the written response in their animal journal explaining what they learned
about pets impact on people using specific examples.
Anticipating students responses and our possible responses:
If students raise points that we plan to cover later on in the unit, we will respond by validating
their point but telling them that we will discuss that at a later date.
If students raise points about the negative effects of pets (i.e. allergies), we will acknowledge
this to the whole class and use it as an opportunity to briefly discuss that there are a few ways
that pets can negatively affect humans.

Accommodations:
1. For students who seem to find the activities and discussions too challengingIf students are struggling to talk about their pets during the sharing activity, we will support them
by having their tablemates ask questions (in essence, giving the group more time for questions
to take some of the pressure off the student and give him/her ideas for things to share).
We expect that the main area a few of our students may struggle with is the writing prompt. We
will support these students by having quick conferences with them. We will also help them
structure their response (i.e. provide them with an outline to help them organize their thoughts).
Additionally, we built some catch up time into the following day, so that students who need
more time can finish up (students who are done can work on other assignments or read
independently during this time).
2. For students who finish early or need an additional challengeWe expect that the allotted time to complete the animal journal will prevent very many students
from finishing early. For those who do, we will first ask them to add more detail to their response
and proofread their work; we may call attention to specific areas they should edit (i.e. work on
their punctuation). After that, we will allow students to read independently or work on other
assignments (as is the classroom policy for students who finish early).
Technology:
The SMART Board will be used to show the slideshow.