6/12/2013

Early Childhood Education

Learning Experience Plan
Name: Annie Gibson and Sarah Newman
Lesson Title: What Do We Know About Weather?
Date: March 1, 2016
Grade Level: pre-kindergarten
Circle one:
ECE
PKSN
Standard(s)/Guideline(s):
Cognition and General Knowledge. Science Inquiry and Application. Pre-Kindergarten- Pose questions about the physical and natural environment.
Cognition and General Knowledge. Cognitive Skills-Memory. Pre-kindergarten-With modeling and support, remember and use information for a variety of
purposes.
Social and Emotional Development. Self. Self-Regulation. Pre-Kindergarten-Demonstrate the ability to delay gratification for short periods of time.
Pre-assessment of current knowledge: The pre-assessment of the students current knowledge will be completed during this lesson. It will take the form of a
KWL, but we will only complete K and W in this lesson. The purpose of this lesson is to see what the students know and what they want to learn from this
experience.
Instructional Objectives (1-2)
One/Two Assessed Instructional
Objective(s): The student will be
able to...
1. Students will be able to
articulate what they know
and what they want to
know about weather.
2. Student will be able to
access prior knowledge in
order to dictate what they
already know about
weather.
One Assessed Developmental
Skill:
1. Students will be able to
raise their hand when they
have something to
contribute to the
discussion, waiting their
turn until they are called
upon.
Safety Considerations:
1. We will be doing this
during large group time, so

Assessment of Student Learning

Identify Evidence: (What will you collect or record as data
to demonstrate students have met your objective(s) and
skill?)
1. We will have a roster for all of the children in the
classroom. We will have created a corresponding
chart that allows us to mark whether the children are
or are not able to meet the lessons objectives.
2. We can also use the chart that we create to serve as
our pre-assessment. The chart will give us all the
information we need on what the students know,
and what the students want to learn throughout the
unit.
Program Monitoring: (How will you aggregate or compile
your evidence into a class or group view?)
1. The chart that we create will also serve as program
monitoring. By creating a sort of KWL chart (only
completing the first two parts in this lesson), we will be
able to pre-asses what the children already know.
Moreover, we will be able to determine what the
children want to know, so we can write lesson plans
accordingly. We will hang these posters up in the
classroom so we can use them as reminders to make
sure that we covered all of the desired material. We can
also make the learned part of the chart at the end of
the unit, time permitting.

Learning Experience
Academic Language:
Seasons: each of the four, separate weather patterns on
Earth, occurring throughout the year
Precipitation: rain, snow, sleet, or hail that falls to the ground
from the sky
Temperature: the degree of heat in an object or substance
Procedural steps:
1. Gather the students on the rug for large group time.
2. Start off the time with their normal large group
routine. This includes the attendance song and Our
Commitment song. In addition to this, the teachers
can play their normal two fun songs to get some
energy out of the kids.
3. Before, we will make a chart about what the students
already know about weather. The chart will be divided
into the three major concepts that we will be covering
within our unit plan; temperature, seasons, and
precipitation.
4. After this, we will move on to introducing the book.
We will review basic print concepts (author, illustrator,
ect.), and then start to read the text.
5. We will read the text together as a class.
6. Afterwards, we will create a chart about what we
want to learn about weather. This will additionally
include the three major concepts within our unit
lesson.
Authentic Materials: (Describe authentic real life, hands-on

6/12/2013

Early Childhood Education

Learning Experience Plan
it will be important that the
students keep their hands
and bodies to themselves
in order to maintain safety
and to avoid disrupting the
learning.

materials.)
1. The two charts that we will fill out as a class
2. The text
Adult Roles:
1. We (Sarah and Annie) will take charge of teaching
the lesson to the class. We will split the instruction
beforehand.
2. The other teachers in the room will be in charge of
sitting with the children in the large group area. This
way, they can insure that the students are behaving
and paying attention.

Resources & References:

Text: Seasons, By Lauren Gates Galvin and Kathy Waugh
Student Name

Students share what they

already know about weather

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
NI
Y
Y
Y

Student is able to articulate

what they want to know about
weather
Y
Y
NI
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
NI
Y
NI
Y
Y
Y

Student is able to raise their

hand and wait their turn until
they are called upon
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
NI
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y

6/12/2013

Early Childhood Education

Learning Experience Plan

Reflection: (What have you learned about your students? How will this inform future instruction?)
Overall, we were very pleased with the way that our introductory lesson plan went. All of the students were attentive and
participated allowing us to collect plenty of information for our pre-assessment. Additionally, their attention and desire to be an active
part of the lesson confirmed their interest in the material. However, this is not to say that the lesson could not have been improved.
There were definitely areas where we could have made the lesson stronger.
One of the first things that we could have done was made the transition from their routine beginning to large group time to our
lesson. That being said, I think one of the best ways we could have done this would have been to utilize a fun song that had to do with
weather. This could have gotten their minds on track, while also conforming with their normal group time schedule. Another thing that
we could have done was made the chart go faster. It took us a while to write down what the children already knew, which made us fall
behind what they were telling us; which means that we could have missed something, even though we were as diligent as we could.
One of the ways that we could have fixed this was by creating different charts so that both of us could have been writing at the same
time. Or, we could have forewarned the students to give us time to write down their thoughts before we moved onto the next one.
However, that being said, their ability to raise their hand and delay the gratification of being called on was one of that standards that we
assessed. Overall, I thought they did a good job with this, but there were just one or two individuals who needed to work on it.
Another thing that we could have worked on was incorporating more of the print concepts into the lesson. We initially wanted to
make sure that we included this because that was what they had been working on in the small group time the previous week. While we
had planned on doing this originally, we forgot to do it in the actual lesson plan. This is something that we have realized and that we will
work to ameliorate in the future. Nevertheless, it seemed like the students were pushed to the end of their attention span by the end of
the lesson. So, maybe it was for the best that we forgot to incorporate it into the read aloud portion of our lesson.
On the other hand, I thought there were certain aspects of our lesson that we did very well. I think that, in retrospect, our lesson
was very developmentally appropriate, and especially appropriate for our particular students. They seemed like they had beginning
knowledge of the subject, but plenty of interest in learning more. Additionally, they were interested in the text and they were able to fully
participate in the lesson. Moreover, the students seemed genuinely interested in learning more about weather which is reassuring for
our future lessons.
Taking all of this into account, we are looking forward to the rest of the unit with our students. We think that, if our preassessment was any indication of the rest of the unit, we are all going to learn a lot about weather!