Reflection on the Planning and Preparation of a

Lesson
When planning and preparing the math lesson for
January 20, 2016, there were many factors that played a
role in my planning thought process.
The first thought that I had was that I wanted to
make sure I was following the curriculum that was
outlined in the teachers manual. The next thought was
that I wanted to teach in the same style that the children
are accustomed to. When I began my students teaching, I
was introduced to the way in which the cooperating
teacher, Kimberly Murray, gives the children options for
addition strategies. In the beginning of my student
teaching, I heard Kimberly asking the children to come up
with these strategies which include: counting on your
fingers; acting it out; using counters; using cubes and
drawing pictures. I have been incorporating these
strategies into my teaching. As time has moved on, I
have added in the strategy counting up, especially
because students have had lessons where they have to
find the answer to the problem where there is a missing
answer before the equal sign. One more thought that I
had while planning this lesson was that Kimberly
suggested that I cut out pictures of bugs and butterflies,
instead of having the students act out the problems, as
we had done quite frequently in recent days.
As I planned, I think of Kimberlys strategies of
reading the story problems, and stopping as I ask the
students questions to check their understanding. As the
story problem progress, the class often acts out the
equation, builds with cubes, and draws or uses counters

to figure out the questions. Then the students typically

write their number sentences on their papers.
Another part of planning this lesson and all of the
math lessons in Kimberlys class is that everything in the
class has to be strategically placed in order for the lesson
to work. The interactive white board has to be turned on
and off at the right time, so that students can try to figure
out the answer without seeing it on the board. For this
lesson, I had made cut outs of bugs and butterflies, so
that the students could easily see them and add them up.
The worksheets had to be ready to pass out.
Additionally, I have been writing out my lesson plan
procedures daily and printing out my procedures to help
me keep track of what I am doing.
The most important aspect of what I am working on
in my planning and preparation is learning how to slow
down my thinking into a step by step process. I have
observed how Kindergarteners seem to follow directions
more efficiently, when they are given one direction at a
time.
I am trying not to have the students do too much at
once. I may say, Go to your desks. Write your name on
your paper. Write your math sentence that describes the
picture. When you finish writing you math sentence,
come back to the rug. Even with these directions, I am
getting into the habit of saying one sentence at a time
and spacing out what I say.
The class is mostly teacher directed because the
students have so much material to get through in their
curriculum.

However, when students build with blocks, I try to

have them working in groups, so they have the
experience of using the Think Pair Share method.
The results of the lesson with the bugs and the
butterflies was that the students did very well. Because
we had been acting out the animals or objects in the
story problems, I think the children were beginning to
become distracted over who was picked to be a volunteer
and who was standing at the front of the room. By having
the cut outs of bugs and butterflies, the students were
focusing on the smaller objects that seemed to be easier
to count.
If I could do one thing to improve upon this lesson, it
would be that the lesson should be given more time. I
would have liked to have walked around the room and
given students more individualized attention while
checking their work.
For the years I taught piano, I was always very detail
oriented and always helped students understand the
lesson. When teaching two groups of twenty-one
students, there isnt the time to be as detail oriented in
terms of making sure the students understand the
material. The goal seems to be to present the material
and hope that through repetition of similar lessons that
students begin to understand concepts and begin to
increase their ability to solve addition equations.
This class excessively drills sounds in language arts. I
think that if students are going to be asked to solve
complex word problems in Kindergarten that it would be
helpful in the planning and preparation to send flashcards

home with the children, so that they can have additional

practice working with numbers. It is surprising to me how
it seems to be important for children to have high
frequency word flash cards, but it isnt important for
students to memorize math problems. I think that math is
likely more complex than language arts for most
students, and that true planning and preparation would
involve encouraging students to work on their math facts,
beyond one or two math questions that are occasionally
given as homework.
What I observed the day that I taught this lesson on
adding, I feel that the students were very involved in the
learning process. I think because I came to school
prepared, the students were able to learn in a fun an
interactive way.
Danielson and Preparation
According to Danielson, the indicators in the domain
of demonstrating knowledge of content and pedagogy
were followed.
The lessons, reflected important concepts
accommodate prerequisite relationships among concepts
and skills. The lesson further contained, clear and
accurate classroom expectations. (Danielson, 7)
The lesson demonstrated knowledge of the students
as I differentiated the instruction to guide students to
answer the math questions.
I shared with students the goal for the instructional
outcomes.

I also demonstrated that I had knowledge of the

resources available as I used the Interactive White Board,
the teacher manual, the worksheets, the bug and
butterfly cut outs and more.
I used instruction that was coherently designed as it
is part of a lesson with a series of similar types of lessons.
The student assessments were the worksheets they
were working on. While I didnt have to design this
assessment, using this assessment, along with noting the
participation, I could determine whether students had
successfully learned the material.