Some Lessons I Created
1st Grade Phonics Lesson /ch/
With any phonics lesson, it is important to teach students the specific connections between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes).
Most importantly, phonics instruction is about using knowledge of letters and sounds to decode, read, and spell words.
In this lesson, I worked with a small group of 3 students, teaching the sound-letter mapping (aka “Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence” /GPC for short) of the digraph /ch/. I offered multiple, engaging opportunities for students to practice using this pattern through both reading and writing words with this graphophonemic pattern.
1st Grade Phonics Lesson /dge/
In this phonics lesson, I worked with a small group of 5 students, some of whom remained in the same group as the /ch/ lesson. However, this lesson focused on the trigraph, when a sound consists of 3 letters, /dge/.
HS Restorative Welcome Back Circle
Although not actually implemented, this activity will be catered for the student (and their family) to welcome them back into the school environment after an absence. At the end of this activity, participants will have created a transition plan to take responsibility for their learning when they return to school. My goal as a teacher in this activity is to break the school-to-prison pipeline and be more equitable in our response to student (mis)behavior.
Dragon Boat Festival Lesson
Although not actually implemented, according to 3.4 of the NYS K-8 Social Studies Framework, I will have a unit focused on one of my selected world communities, which includes China and its legends and historical narratives. In this lesson, we will first review the other Chinese festivals we have learned about so far: Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Then, I will introduce the Dragon Boat Festival by showing some videos and having a class activity.
Leap Year Morning Meeting
Morning meetings (MM) provide a sense of trust, allow all students to feel important, and encourage respectful learning. Students can participate in collaborative conversations with diverse peers and adults in large groups by actively listening, taking turns, and building on others’ talk in conversations. For this specific MM, I did not want just to highlight a person for Black History Month just because it was February. I also wanted to find kid-friendly resources (online videos, slides, and translating for MLLs). I wanted the students to know which date Leap Day is, fix some grammatical issues in my message, learn about the science behind this phenomenon, and do some math regarding age.
CVC Lesson
At this school, students are separated into reading groups that are the “perfect fit” for them. From the beginning of this placement, my mentor teacher told me that this student would be great to pull out during independent work periods to do a lesson. I worked with key teachers in this student’s day to create my lesson plan for this moment.
The purpose of this lesson is to engage the student in games that focused on developing his CVC decoding skills.
​
​
3rd Grade Math Lesson on Halving
This lesson was done in the college setting, in which the students role-played third graders. The goal was to emphasize the fraction 1/2 through the use of manipulatives. The main activity involved students dividing a given shape into two equal parts, as well as splitting the patterned shape evenly. Moreover, we reinforced the concept of “equal” by having students paint one side of the shape and then fold it in half. When they unfold it, the entire shape is shaded, visually demonstrating that two halves make a whole.
5th Grade ELA Visualization
This lesson focused on visualizing to create a deeper understanding of a literary text. Before exploring our ELA text, I allowed them to engage their senses as I read a passage from another story. The purpose of this lesson was for students to learn how to imagine important details of a story to help with comprehension.
​
5th Grade ELA Point of View
In this ELA period, this class focuses on a literary skill every day, and applying these skills across texts (throughout the month). For this lesson, the objective was that students could identify and understand the use of literary devices, including first- or third-person point of view. Students were also expected to list key words and phrases that would help them determine the point of view. Using academic language, students were also asked to explain how a narrator’s point of view influences the way events are described in the story.
5th Grade Math Lesson
This was the introduction lesson to plotting points on a coordinate plane. After meeting with our instructional coach, we determined that plotting and identifying ordered pairs were usually a big portion of the 5th Grade Math State Test. I wanted to teach them key vocabulary and try some examples together.​
5th Grade ELA Theme
In this ELA period, this class focuses on a literary skill every day, and applying these skills across texts (throughout the month). For this lesson, the objective was that students could identify the theme of a story. It was also a creative group project for the students.