Georgia Southwestern State University Lesson Plan Guidelines

Created by GSW School of Education

EDEC 4200 Spring 2016
(Revised by L. Larsen)
Name: Whitney Sandiford
Lesson Date: March 7, 2016
Lesson Start Time: 9:00

Lesson End Time: 9:25

Classroom/Lesson Context
__14__ Whole Group ___4__ Small Group _____ One-on-One
I will be working with the whole class during my instruction. We will play a matching game as a
whole group. For my structured practice we will break into small groups in which each group
contains 4 children.
Please specify the number of students:
____9_ Girls __5___Boys
Learning Central Focus
A. Lesson Plan Title: ________Are you my mother? _______
B. Grade Level: _Kindergarten_______
C. Central Focus:
The central focus of the lesson is to match, compare, and explain parents and
their offspring.
D. Content Standard:

SKL2. Students will compare the similarities and differences in groups of

organisms.
D. Match pictures of animal parents and their offspring explaining your reasoning.
(Example: dog/puppy, cat/kitten, cow/calf, duck/ducklings, etc.)
o

Student Learning Goal(s)/ Objective(s):

A. Skills/procedures:
The students will identify similarities and difference between mother animals and baby
animals. The students will match the mother animal with the correct baby animal.
B. Prior Academic Knowledge and Conceptions:
The students must be familiar with animals and their characteristics to be successful in
this lesson.
The students in this classroom are very familiar with animals because they have lived in
a diverse rural area that has a wide variety of wildlife.

The students are expected to raise their hand and verbally answer questions during this
lesson. They are expected to use vocabulary words such as parent, offspring, different,
alike, and characteristics.

Common Errors, Developmental Approximations, Misconceptions, Partial

Understandings, or Misunderstandings:

Common misconceptions may include the following:

Insects are not animals.
Animals are four footed, or furry.
Animals are large.
Animals live on land.
To address misconceptions I will go over the animals we will be discussing before the
lesson. We are reading a story that involves all types of animals so they are exposed to
characteristics of the animals.
o
o
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Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks

A. Launch: _____5_____ Minutes
I will begin my lesson by gaining the attention of my students with a song about baby
animals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJg4YFtvOp8
After the video I will ask the students a few questions.
o Can you name a few more examples of baby animals?
o What is the name of a baby pig?
o What is the name of a baby kangaroo?
B. Instruction: _____15_____ Minutes
To develop the understanding of the lesson of objective I show the students various
examples of baby animals and their mother. After I show each example we will go over
the various characteristics of the baby and the mother animals. I will ask questions like
the following:
o Does the baby look like the mother?
o How does the baby look like the mother?
o Are the baby and the mother called the same thing?
To link the new concept to previous knowledge I will talk about what students already
know about baby animals and their mothers. I will ask them if they can name a mother
animal and its baby.
I will play a matching game to engage my students in learning the concept. I will have
equal number of cards with baby animals and the mother animals to match. I will hand
out the cards and tell the students to find their match. I will play music while they find
their partner. After each student has found their partner we will let each group share why
their animals match. We will look at the colors of the two animals, the shape of each
animal, etc. I will also ask the students to demonstrate the sound each animal makes.
I will determine if the student is meeting the learning objective by their ability to find their
partner in the matching game and how well each student can explain the characteristics
of each animal. I will make notes during their group presentations so that I can work with
the students who are struggling during small groups.
C. Structured Practice and Application: ___10 minutes for each group______

D.

To give my students the opportunity to practice with feedback the students will be
completing a worksheet where they must match the baby animal with the mother
animal. The students will cut out the baby animal and glue it under the mother animal.
The students will apply the knowledge they acquired in the lesson by looking at the
characteristics between the baby animal and the mother animal and correctly matching
them together.
I will determine if the student is meeting the learning objective by their ability to match
the mother animal with the baby. If the students can correctly match 6 out of 8 animals
they have met the learning objective.
Closure: ____5______ Minutes
To end my lesson I will play the baby animals song again. This time I expect the
students to sing along. I will ask each student to give me an example of a baby animal
and its mother.

Differentiation/ Planned Support

A. Differentiation plan:
How will you provide students access to learning based on individual and group needs?
o For the students who struggle with matching baby animals with the mother
animals I will provide a chart of characteristics to look at to decide how mothers
and babies are alike. For example I would put questions on the chart like are the
animals the same color? Do the animals have the same shape? If the answer is
yes the animals must be mother and baby.
How will you support students with gaps in the prior knowledge that is necessary to be
successful in this lesson?
o For the students with gaps in knowledge I will pull into a small group before my
lesson and fill their gaps in knowledge. I will make sure to go over any prior
knowledge the students need to have in the beginning of my lesson.
B. Student Interactions
How will you structure opportunities for students to work with partners or in
groups? What criteria will you use when forming groups
o The students will be playing a matching game in which one student is provided a
mother animal and another students has a baby animal. The students must walk
around the rug until they have found their match. After each student has found
their matching pair they will sit down and discuss with each other the similarities
and differences between the mother animal and the baby animal.
C. What Ifs
I am worried the students may get over excited during the whole group matching
activity therefore if this is to happen I will use a clapping method from my mentor
teacher to get their attention and address their behavior.
Theoretical Principles and/or Research Based Best Practices

Why are the learning tasks for this lesson appropriate for your students?
o I used the behaviorism theory for my lesson. Behaviorism views the teachers
role as providing information and supervising practice. In the matching game
during the instruction I supervised as the students identified the characteristics of
the animal on their card and found the matching mother or baby animal.

Materials

The teachers materials list includes animal matching worksheet for every student and
cards with mother animals and baby animals to match.
The students will need a pencil for this lesson.

Vocabulary
Content specific vocabulary includes but is not limited to parent, baby, alike, different, features,
similarities, differences, and offspring.
Analyzing Teaching
A. Worked/Didn't Worked
The students loved the matching activity. After playing the game once they asked
several times to play again. During free time I would give them the cards to play with a
partner. After playing a few times they were able to tell me the names of mother animals
and the baby animals to match.
I believe the worksheet was a little bit boring for the children. I believe I could have come
up with a more interactive activity for an independent practice for my students.
B. Adjustments
Instructional changes I would make would be a more proactive way to get the attention
of my students. Several times through out the lesson I would have to ask if they were
listening to me. If I had a hand gesture or simple phrase my lesson could have run more
smoothly.
C. Proposed Changes
If I could teach this lesson again I would implement my mentor teachers three clap
attention getter to prevent the students getting too excited during my lesson. My mentor
teacher used a clapping method to get the attention of her students when they began to
talk too much or get out of hand. If I had implemented this into my lesson to begin with
the lesson would have run more smoothly.
D. Justification
The changes would improve my students learning because there would be fewer
distractions for the students. In my class there are a few students who struggle with
attention deficit disorder and the distractions during my lesson really affected their ability
to stay connected during the whole lesson. My ability to keep them attentive during the
whole group activity would have improved their results during the independent practice.
What research/ theory supports these changes?
o Research says if students have a consistent learning environment they are able
to focus on the content presented. If I would have implemented my mentor
teachers three clap attention getter the students would have been familiar with
this method of classroom management and been more attentive during my
lesson.

o U. (n.d.). Increasing Student Achievement: Environment. Retrieved from

http://www.achievementstrategies.org/1originalSite/learningenvironment/E2d/Res
earch/L2R.pdf

Lesson Planning
GSW School of Education
Revised Spring 2016
This is an abbreviated format of the GSW lesson plan. Teacher Candidates will practice
writing three lesson plans in the EC science course.
The grading rubric is included in this packet. Pay close attention to the following:
Instructional Strategies Section
Instruction I (teacher candidate) do
Practice We (teacher candidate and students) do
Application You (student) do
These sections need DETAIL. Consider the following:
What are you providing as instruction?
How are you providing the instruction?
When the practice section starts, are your students doing?
How is the practice helping meet your goals of this lesson?
In application, what types of assessment(s) are you doing?
What should the student achieve by completing this application?