Theme: The Rain Forest
This plan is meant for the pre-kindergarten age-group aged 3 to 4 years.
Objectives
- Students will be able to paint and identify some wildlife species in the rainforest.
- Students will be able to record and isolate the features found in a rainforest as it will be learnt in “The umbrella” story.
- Students will be able to play video games with various terms and educative activities.
- Students will be able to practise some of the onomatopoeia sounds made by the animals found in the rainforest.
Materials
The materials will be a book “the umbrella” by Jan Brett (2004), a projector, a laptop, pictorial diagrams of wildlife species mentioned in “the umbrella rainforest story“ , pictorial maps showing typical rainforests, animal sculptures, a white board, a blue marker pen, play stations sound games, crayons and drawing books. The class will be organized in a semi-circumference seminary format where the teacher together with the materials will be facing all the students. The display materials will appear at the most appropriate positions for all learners to view effectively.
Body of the lesson
Anticipatory Set
The class will be set in a semi-circular conference stage format in order to make students focus on the teacher and the resources provided. The teacher will then proceed to introduce the topic of study by showing the cover of “the umbrella book” and then ask the students to make predictions of what they think the story will entail. As a preparation for this lesson, the teacher will carry an umbrella and then engage the students to differentiate between the present umbrella and the one found in the rainforest story.
The teacher will also narrate to students about some of the animals mentioned in the story and will then involve the class to give some of their views regarding the habitat to the mentioned animals. These views will be recorded on a chart paper. The teacher will then proceed to taking the students through a picture walk of the book while pointing out the most important captions in the pages. The teacher will then read the whole story to the class in the most effective way.
Direct Instruction and Guided Practice
The lesson will be all-inclusive one where learners will be allowed to participate. This aspect will improve the equality of all students in that they will experience similar chances of selection. In cases of the slow learners, extra time will be provided to pull up their capabilities. After “the umbrella book” reading session, an animated type of a movie clip that shows a rainforest theme will be played to the class. The choice of the clip must be strictly related to the “the umbrella” story and suitable for the learner’s age.
Therefore, the movie clip must contain some child development elements such as cartoons and puppeteer’s explanation. The educator will be actively involved in the lesson’s activities by teaching the learners some songs that have been developed in the “the umbrella” story. In addition, the teacher will organize some students to dramatize some of the popular scenes as portrayed in the “the umbrella” book. Therefore, it is a requirement that the teacher should be audible enough and knows how to relate properly with the learners of the selected age group.
Closure/ Assessment
The lesson will end after the learners paint various wildlife species learnt during the lesson. All reference sources will be hidden in order to test the learner’s capacity to remember. The selection of species to be drawn will be based on the popularity of some of the species learnt in “the umbrella book” and the movie clip. The learners’ paintings will be marked as the lesson proceeds, and this activity will end by awarding the best drawings and the performances of the various drama plays.
Classification and Modifications
Dyslexia is a choice of classification which can hinder the success of the lesson due to difficulties encountered while pronouncing and writing some names of the species (Barnett et al. par. 1). In order to modify this disorder, the taxonomic names of species will be replaced by their local names for easy identification. In addition, detailed information regarding the rain forest will be omitted in the explanation.
Code of the Lesson
New Jersey Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards for pre-kindergarten learners is the code to embrace in teaching this lesson. In this code, representation of the social and mental needs of the learners have been enhanced within this plan in order to ensure proper development of the child as per the guidelines set in the curriculum.
Independent Practice
As part of the lesson future development, the teacher will provide the reference book to the learners in groups of five and then guide them to practise some of the phrases that are found in the “the umbrella” book and which are written in Spanish. In this foreign language practise, the teacher will encourage the learners to learn new foreign terms and develop the culture of multi-language speakers among the learners. The teacher will assess the progress of this activity by encouraging feedback from the group leaders.
Questions to include in the lesson plan
- Has Carlos been in the forest before? Explain your answer.
- What are the names of several animals found in the “umbrella book” story?
- Can a river be found in a rainforest?
- What are the names of some dangerous animals found in a forest?
- What are the names of some human-friendly animals likely to be found in a rain forest?
- What are the names of some trees found in a typical rainforest apart from the fig tree mentioned in the story?
- What is the possible reason that made Carlos call the forest a “cloud forest” when the story begins?
- Why were all the animals attracted to the Umbrella?
- Do you feel if you hadn’t read the story you would still comprehend what is happening in the story? Why or Why not?
Works Cited
Barnett, Steven, Dale Epstein, Megan Carolan, Jen Fitzgerald, Debra Ackerman, and Allison Friedman. “Contents.” The State of Preschool 2010. National Institute for Early Education Research, 2015. Web.
Brett, Jan. The Umbrella. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004. Print.