Spring 2014

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LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

Kaitlyn Rogers
Mrs. Sunshine (code name), Kindergarten, Sunshine Elementary School (code name)
November 16, 2016
November 9, 2016

TITLE OF LESSON
Take a trip with me! This lesson will involve children going on a trip to different places. In order to reach the
different destinations they need to build a maze using straws, scissors, and stickers. They will use these materials
to go from the starting point, stopping at each place, and ending at the finishing point. After the maze is built the
students will test their maze to see if it holds up as they drive a toy car through it.
CONTEXT OF LESSON

This activity is appropriate for this age group because it involves them using
their fine motor skills, problem solving skills, and communication skills. At
this age children learn best through play, which is done through hands-on,
interactive activities. In order for children to get the most out of a lesson,
they must be actively engaged and interested in what they are learning. As
the children work together they will be able to practice their STEM abilities
while also being engaged in the activity. This activity is developmentally
appropriate for them because it involves techniques that they already know
how to do (such as cutting, placing objects on a poster board, and placing
stickers on something) but they will be working together as a team. As these
already known skills are being practiced, their social skills will be exercised
as well.
When I went to Clymore Elementary to observe the children, I noticed that
they are able to follow directions, cut and paste while participating in
activities. Although they will not be using glue in this activity, they will be
using another sticky element (the stickers) to connect one object to another
(the straws to the poster board).

OBJECTIVES AND ASSESSMENT

Developmental Objectives
1. The students will exercise their fine
motor skills (cutting, pinching, peeling,
placing, sticking)

Assessment
This objective will be measured by observing the students ability to use
their fine motor skills. The fine motor skills that will be assessed and
recorded are cutting with scissors, placing straws on a poster board,
pinching and peeling stickers off of a paper, and sticking a sticker onto
the poster board. This objective will be tested as the children use their
fine motor skills to build a path on the poster board. For each fine motor
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2. The students will describe the position

of pictures in relation to each other on the
poster board

skill, the children will receive a score of 0, 1, or 2. A score of 0 means the

child cannot do that certain fine motor skill. A score of 1 means the child
can somewhat do that fine motor skill and meets expectations. A score of
2 means the child can do that fine motor skill effortlessly and exceeds
expectations.
This objective will be measured by their use of words when describing
where one place is in position compared to the destination before. Each of
the places has an object (ex: a tree, fountain, bench, or traffic light)
above, below, or beside it. This objective will be assessed as the instructor
asks the children where the next places position compared to the one
before. The child will receive a 0 if he/she does not use any positional
words. The child will receive a 1 if he/she uses one positional word and
meets the objective. The child will receive a 2 if he/she uses two or more
positional words and exceeds the objective. The students recorded
answers will be used to assess if he/she used one descriptive word, two or
more descriptive words, compared the position of each place to the object
that is around it when describing that places position.

COLLECTION OF ASSESSMENT DATA

*See attached data collection form
RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (K & 1) OR FOUNDATION BLOCKS (Preschool)
Visual Communication and Production
K.11: The student will use motor skills (e.g., pinching, pulling, squeezing, twisting, pounding,
rolling, folding, cutting, modeling, stamping) to create two-dimensional and three-dimensional
works of art.
Number and Number Sense
Focus: Whole Number Concepts
K.3: The student, given an ordered set of ten objects and/or pictures, will indicate the ordinal
position of each object, first through tenth, and the ordered position of each object.
MATERIALS NEEDED

Straws (provided by JMU student)

Big stickers (provided by JMU student)
Two laminated poster boards with the attached places they will go (provided
by JMU student)
Toy car (provided by JMU student)
Scissors (provided by CT)
Laminated numbers (provided by JMU student)
Laminated places they will go (provided by JMU student)

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Laminated clipart lake for when they need a challenge *see differentiation
(provided by JMU student)
Instruction card (provided by JMU student)
Camera (provided by JMU student)

PROCEDURE

Preparation of learning environmentThe poster board will be set up on a table in the classroom. The pictures of the destinations
the children will be visiting on their trip through town will already be attached to the
board. All of the supplies (straws, scissors, stickers) will be beside the poster board in
order to be easily accessible for the students. The instruction card will be set up beside the
poster board. I will also have laminated numbers (1-4) and laminated picture of the places
they will be visiting. Each place will be set up in the order that the children will build the
path to.
Engagement and introduction of the lessonI will first introduce the activity by telling the children that we will be taking a trip through
town (as I do this motion towards the starting point and ending point so they know where
we will begin and finish. I will also show them the toy car that we will use to drive
through the path at the end to test what they have built). I am going to then tell them that in
order to go on this trip, we need to build a path so we are able to go to each place. I will
show them each of the materials that they can use in order to build the path. I will explain
that the straws will be used to build the path and that if one of the straws is too big they
can cut it with the scissors. I will then tell them that they can use the stickers to stick the
straws to the board. After, I will go through the order of the places that they will need to
build a path to (order: zoo, school, playground, then candy store). While I tell them each of
the places, in order, I will match a picture of each place with the numbers one through four
so they have a visual idea of what they need to do for this activity. If I notice that one of
the children is doing more work than the others, I will ask the other students to help get a
sticker off to put on the next straw. If the children are building the path to skinny for the
car to fit through I will show them the car again and ask them, Do you think that path is
big enough for this car to drive through?
Implementation of the lessonAfter I introduce the activity to the children I will say, okay so now that we know what to
use in order to make a path to go from the starting point to the ending point of our trip, we
can begin building! I will then let the students try to work together in order to build the
paths by themselves. I am going to try to refrain from telling them what to do in order for
them to practice their skills on their own. As the students build their path, they will gather
the straws and start placing them on the poster board to make a road towards each
destination. If I notice the children are working together, I will comment on it and say, I
love the way you are working together as a team, since teamwork is a big part of STEM.
If they are not communicating and working together I will encourage them by saying,
Can we discuss as a group what we think is the best way to build this road? For each
path connection they make between these places I will use these phrases in order to either
reinforce or promote teamwork. Before they build their path to each place, I will ask them
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where that place is. For example, before they build their path towards the candy store, I
will ask them to tell me where the candy store is again. After I ask this question I am
looking for the children to respond with more than one word rather than just, beside, I
am hoping they will say, Its beside the fountain. I will ask where each place is before
they build a path to that place in order to hear their positional words. I will be looking for
their use of positional words since this is one of my objectives. As they are building their
path, I will also compliment their fine motor skills. For example, if I see a child using their
fine motor skill of cutting, pinching, peeling, placing, or sticking properly, I will tell them
that I love the way he/she does that skill. If I see a child struggling with one of these fine
motor skills, I will ask one of their friends to help them or I will show him/her how to do
it. After they are done building their road I will have them test their road by driving the toy
car through it. In order for each child to be able to do this, I will ask one child to drive to
each destination (there are a total of 17 kids and 5 activities so there will be between three
to four children at my activity at one time). If there is a group of three, the children will all
work together on one poster board. If there is a group of four, I will have two poster boards
so they can work in groups of two. If the road they made works, I will congratulate them
and tell them they did a great job. If it does not work, I will ask them where they think we
need to fix the road.
ClosureIf there is extra time I will mix up the pictures of the places of where they went on the
board, and I will ask them to put them in order with their corresponding number. This
activity will reinforce what they just did by testing their memorization skills since they
will be putting the places in order (1-4) without referring to the poster boards. I will ask
them to work together as a team and match the places with their number to put them in
order of when we went to these places. At the end of the activity, right before they go to
their next one, I will tell them that they did a great job communicating and working
together to build the path. I will tell them that by working together, they were able to go to
all of the places on the board and that I had a great time with them on this trip. I will also
tell them that they were only able to make it to each place by using their words to describe
each place, and by using their hands to build a path with the stickers and straws. In order
to be prepared for the next group, I will switch out the poster board that the last group used
for the without any straws or stickers on it. With the groups of four, I will have the
students help take off the straws and stickers when I am reviewing the importance of this
activity in order for the boards to be clean for the next group.
Clean-upIn between groups, I will switch out the clean poster board for the one that was just used in
order to make the transition go smoothly. With the groups of four, I will ask the students to
help with the clean-up, and I will make sure to give a little more clean-up time for these
groups. At the end, I will gather up all of my materials and move it to right outside of the
classroom for me to pick up when I leave. Then I will go around to each table and place a
Smarties candy at each spot. As I do this I will say that since they are such smarties and
made it to the end of the trip to the candy store that they get Smarties.
DIFFERENTIATION

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If a child is struggling with his/her fine motor skills, such as cutting or using their fingers to grab a
sticker off of the paper, I will individually help that child and show him/her how to do it.
If a student has trouble with describing the position of where each place is in relation to the object
next to it, I will ask them more direct questions, such as, where is ____by?
If the children are not working as a team I will ask them questions such as, Can you guys discuss
as a group what you would like to do to build this path then tell me your groups answer?
If this activity is too easy for the students I could challenge them by saying, What if there was a
lake between the zoo and the playground? How would we get to the playground then? The
students would either have to construct a bridge to go over the lake or a path that curves around
the lake to get to the next destination.
If one child is not doing anything, I will try to prompt that student by asking if he/she wants to do
a certain task. For example, I could say, Do you want to get a sticker for the next straw?

WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?

The children may not communicate and work together as a team. I could fix
this problem by asking them if they could think together on how to build a
path. If this does not work and only one child answers my question I could ask
him/her to ask his/her friends if they agree or have a different idea.
The children may build the path too thin or too wide. If this happens, I would
ask them to try to fit the toy car in the beginning of their path to see if they
think they should change the size to fit the car better.
The children may not be able to describe the position of one place according
to its coordinating object. If this happens, I will ask more specific questions,
such as, Where is ____ by?
The children could finish this activity really fast. If this happens I could
challenge them with the lake problem. I could also do the review activity
where they sort the places they went to in order with their correlating number.
There could be a fire drill. I would deal with this issue by following the fire drill
guidelines then refreshing the children on what we were just doing before we
were interrupted. Then the activity will continue to go as planned.
The children might not be able to have enough time to finish their path and go
to every place. If this happens, I will have them test the part of the path that
they built.
Lesson Plan Reflection

As soon as possible after teaching your lesson, reflect on the experience. Use the questions/prompts below to
guide your thinking. Be thorough in your reflection and use specific examples to support your insights.

A. How did your actual lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes you made & explain why you
made them. Be thorough & specific in your description. (3 pts)
o My lesson varied greatly from my original plan. One portion of the lesson that I did not follow
was splitting the groups of four students into two groups. During the time of the STEM
workshop, I forgot to split the one group of four into two groups since I was used to all of the
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other groups working together. Each of the other groups were all groups of three, which was
why, in the moment, I made this mistake. Another variation that occurred was the way I
presented the lesson to the children. Instead of doing it the way I originally planned, I showed
the instruction card to the children first. On the instruction card it had three steps. The first step
was to match the places to their number, the second step was to build the path, and the third step
was to test the path with the toy car. Instead of showing the students the materials they were
going to use first, I instead talked to them about each of the places we were going to visit in
order, then I introduced the different types of materials. Another aspect that did not go as
planned was speaking to the children about the positions of each place. Originally I had all of
my prompting questions ready, but during the STEM workshop, it was harder to implement
these questions than I thought. I initially thought I was going to be able to ask the children the
position of each place before they built their path to that place. Instead, I was caught up
monitoring, commenting, and questioning their work that I forgot to ask about each place every
time. Alternatively, I was only able to ask the children about the position of one or two of the
places. Another feature of the lesson that I changed was the amount of scissors the students had.
When the STEM workshop started, I gave each of the students a pair of scissors. The students
went a little scissor crazy and cut many of the straws up into tiny pieces. In order to avoid this
action from happening in every group I got rid of all of the pairs of scissors except for one.

B. Evaluate the impact of the lesson based on your plan for assessing learning and the individual data you
collected on each objective. Cite multiple examples of student behavior & language that document your
conclusions. (8 pts)
o The assessment of the childrens fine motor skills seemed to be effective. Most of the children
obtained a score of two on cutting, peeling, placing, and sticking. The score of two resembles
that the children could effortlessly do these fine motor skills and exceeded expectations.
Although most of the children received a score of two on those fine motor skills, all of the
children obtained a score of one on the fine motor skill of pinching. This score was given to the
students if they could somewhat do this fine motor skill and met expectations. The fine motor
skill of pinching seemed to be a little hard at times for the children to do. For example, one of
the students, Marianna, had a difficult time pinching one of the stickers, so she decided to
choose a different sticker to pinch off of the paper. Another student, Alexis, also had a hard time
pinching the sticker off of the paper and it took her a little while to eventually get this sticker.
o The assessment of the students description of position of each of the places did not go as well as
I expected. It was difficult to get the children to use their words to describe what object each
place was by. For example, when I asked Alaiysha specifically where we were going and where
it was she just pointed to the picture of the zoo. Many of the children used their fingers to point
to the places to answer this question versus using their words. When the children did answer
with positional words, it was when I asked where a certain place was by. For example, when I
asked Christian where the playground was by, he answered, playground by the tree. Another
example is with the student, Bella. When I asked her where the candy store was she answered,
right here! Then I asked her what the candy store was by and she replied, by the waterfall. I
had to prompt many of the students with this question in order for them to say the specific words
I was looking for.

C. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better or
more thorough way if you were to present this lesson again. (2 pts)
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One way that I could make this lesson more developmentally appropriate if I were to present it
again would be to have the children use scotch tape instead of stickers. The students seemed to
have a hard time pinching the stickers off of the paper and they also argued for the set of stickers
quite a few times. In order for this aspect of the lesson to be more developmentally appropriate
for the kindergarteners, I would have scotch tape that they would use to stick down the straws
instead. By using scotch tape instead, the children would be practicing their fine motor skills of
pulling and tearing. I am not sure whether or not they would argue over getting the tape from the
tape dispenser, but I do believe this material may be less distracting than stickers.
Another way to make my lesson more developmentally appropriate could be to have laminated
positional words. Instead of just asking the simple question of where one of the places is to the
students, I could have words that they could choose from. The laminated positional words would
be beside, behind, and in front. For example, before they built the path to the playground, I
would ask them if the playground was beside, behind, or in front of the playground (as I said
each word I would point to each of the laminated words). I would tell the students that they
needed to answer this question by pointing to the word and they would say it out loud as well. I
believe this addition to the lesson would have made the assessment of this objective much easier.
When I originally asked the children where each place was, many of the children just pointed to
the picture of the place. By using laminated cards, it would promote the children in exercising
their use of words.

D. If you were the teacher in this classroom, what follow-up experiences would you plan? (Develop your
answer based on the data that was collected and your observations during the lesson.) (2 pts)
o As a follow-up exercise, I would have the children practice their use of positional words more. I
would have them practice these skills by reviewing the words first. I would put up the words on
the board then go through each one with real-life examples. For example, I would stand beside a
certain student and ask the class if I was beside, behind, or in front of this student. Then I would
go and stand behind my desk and ask them if I was beside, behind, or in front of my desk. Next,
I would stand in front of the door and ask if I was beside, behind, or in front of the door. I could
then have the classroom pair up into groups of two to practice saying these words with a partner.
The students could practice being beside, behind, and in front of one another while talking to
each other about these positional words. After they have enough practice with these words, I
would refer back to the poster boards and ask them to describe to me the positional words for
each place. Then I would have them draw a picture of the objects that were next to each of the
places. I would have them draw them in the correct order, then right either the word beside,
behind, or in front on with each object as well. The paper would be split into four sections with a
drawing and writing space in each section.

E1. Share something you learned about young children as a result of planning and conducting the activity.
Relate this new knowledge to principles of child development or appropriate curriculum from your ELED
308 and ECED 372 courses. (2 pts)
o One aspect that I learned about young children is that they do not use their words unless
prompted. I originally thought the students would understand and respond to my question when
I asked where each place was. Instead the students just pointed to each of the pictures. Also, the
students had a hard time working together in this activity. Although at some points they were
able to work together when prompted, the children were more concerned with what they were
doing themselves than working in a group. This example connects to Freuds idea of the id, ego,
and superego. The children represented that they are in Freuds id stage since they were only
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concerned about their self and what benefited them. The id stage is one where a child is selfcentered and only focuses on oneself. The id stage seemed to be apparent in most of the children
during this STEM activity.

E2. Share something you learned about teaching as a result of planning and conducting this activity.
Describe how you will apply this new knowledge to upcoming opportunities for developing learning
experiences for children. (6 pts)
o One important aspect that I learned about teaching is that you need to be flexible in order to
easily adapt to your students needs. I did not originally plan for my STEM activity to go this
way, so it is vital to be able to change your plans in the moment. During my STEM activity,
some of the children were building paths to the correct places and others were not. When the
students were not building the path to the correct place I tried to prompt them to switch it to the
correct order. Thinking about it now, the point of this STEM exercise is for children to practice
interactive, hands-on skills. After they believe they completed an activity in the correct way,
they need to test their results. I learned that, although students may not be doing something the
exact way you want them to, they are still learning. Even if they are not building the path in the
correct order of the places, the objectives of fine motor skills and description of words is still
being used. I learned that it is okay to not have the results turn out perfectly or the way you
expected. I am a perfectionist, so I believe this experience taught me that it is okay to be flexible
in the classroom. I learned that by changing your plans in the moment and being flexible, your
lesson may turn out better than you originally planned. As long as the children are learning the
objectives while also having fun, it does not matter if the lesson goes as originally planned. I
will apply this new understanding to my future teaching experiences by always being flexible
and prepared for any possible outcome. Adaptation is key to being a good teacher and providing
your students with a positive and effective learning experience.

E3. Share something you learned about yourself as a result of planning & conducting
this activity? (2 pts)
o I learned that I like circumstances to go as planned. When I planned and
conducted this activity, I originally wanted it to go exactly as planned.
Throughout the STEM activity, I learned that following my lesson plan strictly
was not going to work out. As I acknowledged and accepted this fact, I
became more relaxed and enjoyed my time working with the children. As I
worked with them and asked them prompting questions, I noticed that I was
still hitting key points of my lesson plan without even trying. By just being in
the moment and being flexible with how the lesson was presented, I learned
that the children were still learning just in a way that I did not plan. I also
learned that students at this age are very smart. I noticed that it was hard to
hold back my own thoughts or questions in order for the children to use their
own thought processes instead. One time when I bit my tongue, one of the
students solved a problem where one of the straws was too long. She
examined it for a little while then decided to cut it to make it shorter. At this
point, I realized that I am very controlling and that it is important to let loose
and let the children take over sometimes. I am glad that I came to these
realizations about myself so I can work on being more open-minded and
flexible. I think it is important to give your students a big role in the
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classroom in order for them to feel as if they have a purpose, so I will

continue to try to be more flexible and less controlling when implementing
an activity.

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