Thematic Unit Lesson Plans

Candidate’s Name: Brandy Blanchard                                  

Grade Level: K-2

Title of the lesson: Lesson 1- Where is Emily? Beginning Consonant Sounds

Length of the lesson: 2 ELA blocks (50-60 minutes each)

Central focus of the lesson: In this lesson, students will listen to and participate in an active story book that will provide practice with identifying initial consonants and matching letter sounds to their corresponding letters. The interactive story book will also allow students the opportunity to use picture clues to aid in comprehension and enhance their reading vocabulary.

Knowledge of students to inform teaching: After performing running records, it has been noted that several students in the class are performing below grade level in reading. To help students improve fluency and comprehension, this lesson, amongst others in the unit, will return to basic skills so students can continue to improve and work towards being better readers.

Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.3. a Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.2 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.5 With guidance and support from adults, demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Support literacy development through academic language: ·         Key learning task: Students will identify beginning consonants and their letter sounds ·         Language demands: Students will need to speak the letter as well as the sound, and provide examples of a word that starts with that letter. ·         Vocabulary: Recognize/ identify ·         Content specific vocabulary: interactive, consonant, beginning letter ·         Sentence Level: Complete sentences ·         Discourse: Conversation/ discussion

Learning objectives: Students will 1.    recognize beginning consonant sounds by reading and listening to a story that highlights select words 2.    use picture clues to aid in comprehension 3.    match beginning consonant sounds

Formal and informal assessment: ·         Participation during partner work ·         Interactive game score ·         Matching quiz

Instructional procedure: ·         To begin the lesson, the students and I will explore the interactive Clifford Storybook ‘Where is Emily’. First, I will read the title to the class. I will ask the students to guess that the story might be about based on the cover and title of the story. Next, I will have a student read the first page. ·         I will continue to model how to work through the book for the students, by clicking the speaker icon in the interactive book, how to choose the correct word choice (play, park, put) which will read the sentence out loud with the chosen word. I will ask the student who read the first page if they sounded like the recording, and if not, what mistakes they may have made. Did the choose the correct word? Etc. ·         Next, we will reread the first sentence together as a class. I will point to the word “play” at the end of the first sentence. I will point to the letter ‘p’ as I make the letter sound. I will ask students what the letter is and how it sounds to them. We will talk about other words using the phrase ‘p like put’. I will record these words on the board to create a list of sight words for practice later. ·         For guided practice, I will choose another student to read the next sentence. I will not provide a word for the blank, but will ask the class to vote on which word they think is correct. The student can choose to go with the class, or pick which word he or she thinks is correct. After the student chooses his response, we will play the completed sentence. We will then repeat what we did in the previous step with the letter ‘p’ but this time we will use the letter ‘t’. ·         Again, we will read, listen to, and reread the third sentence of the story. I will point to the word ‘but’ and ask the students what the first letter is, and what sound it makes. Again, we will make a list of other words that start with the letter ‘b’ to add to our sight word list. ·         On the second day of the lesson, students will pair up and work through the digital storybook the entire way through together. ·         While reading, the student will need to click on a word to complete the sentence, they will receive immediate feedback from the story whether it is correct or not. ·         We will come back together and review our sight words list, and beginning consonant letters and their letter sounds. ·         For independent practice, students will play the scholastic Clifford’s sound match game. Students will be given a picture (ex; of the sun) and they will have to move items with the same beginning sound into a box.

Instructional resources and materials: ·         Computers with internet access ·         Clifford Interactive Storybook Where Is Emily ·         Sound Match -Clifford Storybook activity via scholastic.com ·         Headphones ·         ELMO or SMARTboard ·         Dry Erase board

Reflection: Questions to ask following the lesson ●     Did technology enhance the lesson? ●     Did I modify enough for different level learners? ●     Did this lesson fit in with my overall unit plan?

Candidate’s Name: Brandy Blanchard                                  

Grade Level: K-2

Title of the lesson: Lesson 2- Clifford’s Big Dig Recognizing Confusable Letter Pairs

Length of the lesson: 2 ELA blocks (50-60 minutes each)

Central focus of the lesson: The central focus of this lesson is for students to practice distinguishing between pairs of similar looking letters such as p and b, m and w, n and m, and b and d.

Knowledge of students to inform teaching: After performing running records and various assessments, it has been noted that several students struggle with similar looking words and letters. This lesson will help students work on similar looking letters as a basis for working on the word pairs they mixed up during reading.

Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.3. a Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.2 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.5 With guidance and support from adults, demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Support literacy development through academic language: ●      Key learning task: Students will participate in a matching activity where they will need to match letters to their correct pair. ●      Language demands: Students will write similar looking letters and explain the difference between how they look, describing what makes them different from each other. Vocabulary ●     General academic terms: distinguish ●     Content specific vocabulary: letter pairs, confusing Sentence Level ●     Sentence structure, complete sentences Discourse ●   conversation, discussion

Learning objectives: Students will 1.    Distinguish between visually similar letters 2.    Match words that start with the same letter 3.    Construct a story by actively choosing fill in the blank words 4.    Use picture clues to aid comprehension

Formal and informal assessment: ·         Student checklist (write letter correctly, name other words that begin with letter, distinguish similar looking letter pairs from each other) ·         Participation in pair work and independent work ·         Letter matching game ·         Fill in the blank letter quiz

Instructional procedure: ·         To introduce the lesson, I will ask the students if they can think of any letters that look the same to them. ·         On the board, I will write the letters b, d, and the word bed. I will ask for a student volunteer to telling which letter is which. I will then work with the students on understanding that the word ‘bed’ looks like a bed, and that the first letter is b which comes before the last letter, d, in the alphabet. ·         Together, the class and I will brainstorm a list of words that start with b, and a list of words that start with d. I will make sure to include big under the b category and digging under the d category since students will encounter those in our interactive storybook. ·         Next, I will review with the class how the interactive Clifford stories work. I will model for them how to move through the first two sentences how to click the speaker icon to hear the sentences read out loud. ·         In the first sentence, I will point to the letter d in the word digging, read it out loud, and ask the students what the first letter is. ·         I will do the same with the word big in the second sentence, and again have a student identify the first letter. I will then ask a student to explain the difference between b and d and how they remember the difference. ·         We will continue through another page together having children use visual clues to choose a word to complete the sentence. ·         For the second session, students will work in pairs to read through the book from beginning to end, choosing fill in the blank words based on the picture clues as they go on. Before they start, we will talk about how some of the choices will all have the same beginning letter and others may have some letters that look the same. ·         After the story, we will get back together to identify differences between similar looking letters (ex; the line in the letter b goes up, while in the letter p it goes down). ·         We will work together to create a chart of similar looking letters, and tips the students can use to remember the differences. ·         Independently, students will play a matching game on the scholastic website where they must match similar looking letters to the words that start with those letters. ·         To wrap up the lesson, I will hold up cards with different letters on them and ask students to identify those letters. ·         I will then write pairs of words on the chalkboard that the students could mix up and work with them to identify the different letters. ·         Students will complete a fill in the blank letter quiz.

Instructional resources and materials used: ·         Internet ready computers ·         Dry erase board ·         Clifford interactive story books (scholastic) ·         Letter math game cards ·         Student headphones ·         Internet ready student computers or tablets

Reflection: Questions to ask following the lesson ●     Did technology enhance the lesson? ●     Did I modify enough for different level learners? ●     Did this lesson fit in with my overall unit plan?

Candidate’s Name: Brandy Blanchard                                  

Grade Level: K-2

Title of the lesson: Lesson 3- Clifford’s Good Deeds comprehension and sequencing

Length of the lesson: 1 ELA block (50 minutes)

Central focus of the lesson: In this lesson, students will continue to read Clifford the Big Red dog stories to work on comprehension and sequencing events in a story. Students will reference the text to answer specific questions about characters and events in the story.

Knowledge of students to inform teaching: Due to prior assessments, many students in the class are performing below grade level. This lesson, along with others in the unit, are designed to help students revisit basic reading skills so they can read more fluently and better comprehend a text.

Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.1 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.2 Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2.7 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.

Support literacy development through academic language: ●      Key learning task: Students will begin the story by predicting what will happen based on the cover and title. Students will have a discussion summarizing what happened in the story, and participate in an activity where they will sequence events of the story. ●      Language demands: Students will need to discuss key events in the story, and write them down in sequential order from beginning to end. Vocabulary ●     General academic terms: predict, summarize, sequence ●     Content specific vocabulary: deeds, help, safely, thank, medal, hero Sentence Level ●     Sentence structure Discourse: conversation, discussion

Learning objectives: 1.    Students will predict what happens in the story after previewing the first two or three pages. 2.    Students will recall the order of events in a story. 3.    Students will answer questions regarding key details of the text.

Formal and informal assessment: ·         Ordering images of the good deeds in the story in order from first to last ·         Clifford Kahoot! Quiz ·         Journal entry- favorite part of the story with illustration

Instructional procedure: ·         As a pre-reading activity, I will play an animated clip from the book Clifford’s Big Ideas for the students. In the clip, Clifford is helping a friend. To help the students understand the main idea of the story prior to reading, we will discuss helping friends and other people. ·         Next, the students and I will preview the first three pages of the story. Using the illustrations and what we have seen in the clip, I will ask students to predict what they think will happen in the story. ·         Following the pre-reading activities, I will read the story all the way through for the students. I will do this to model how to read fluently and with expression. I will ask the students to look at the pictures as I read to see if they can make connections between what I’m saying and what has been illustrated. ·         The second time reading through the story, I will ask that the students read along with me for a shared reading. ·         After the second reading, I will have students think, pair, share what they think the main idea of the story is. ·         We will come back together as a class and list important events that happened in the story. I will ask that students provide evidence from the text as they recall what happened to Clifford and his friends. We will also discuss what order events happened in. ·         Independently, as I walk around to provide assistance, students will order cardstock with images of the good deeds in the order they happened. ·         We will come back together to go over the timeline for students to make any corrections. ·         To close out the lesson, the students and I will discuss other good deeds we could add to the story. Students will then illustrate a picture of the good deed they would add.

Instructional resources and materials: ·         Internet ready computer ·         Animated clip for Clifford’s Big Ideas ·         Copy of the book for each of the students ·         Vocabulary cards ·         Cardstock with images of the good deeds

Reflection: Questions to ask following the lesson ·         How could technology have enhanced this lesson? ·         Were the students engaged throughout? ·         Did this lesson fit in with my unit plan? ·         How could I have modified more for ELL, struggling, or advanced learners?