Reflections for Lesson Plans

Grade 5
Biblical Studies
Unit of Inquiry
English

Sekolah Pelita Harapan Lippo Karawaci

LP 1 Biblical Studies

Hardships

35 minutes

This lesson plan was based a booklet that the class was following on

the context of the life of Joseph. This time, we talked about hardships.

I began with having the students do some imagining. I gave them a

setting about being bound in a small hut and gave some pretty sickening

physical descriptions. This helped them to sympathize with Josephs state

when he was sold into slavery and then later imprisoned. After a session of

contextualization, I gave them an opportunity to share some of the

hardships they have experienced and how that experience helped them to

grow more mature and stronger.

My biggest struggle during this lesson was time management. Because

it was my very first lesson, I had to adjust my talking speed many times just

for the lesson to match up with the times I designated.

LP 2 Biblical Studies

Temptations

35 minutes

This lesson plan was very lecture-based, but I tried incorporate a

physical activity just to help non-auditory learners. Although the activity was

successful and the students somehow achieved the objective behind this, I

definitely was not satisfied because I know that I could have delivered the

lesson more effectively. However, due to my lack of experience, I still do not

know various teaching methods that help children understand abstract

concepts.

This reminds me once more that experience is the best teacher.

Learning never really stops. Every time we teach, we learn new ideas and

ways of conducting the class and more so, get to know the students and

know how to address their learning needs.

LP 3 Biblical Studies

Unjust Treatment

35 minutes

This lesson plan is again focused on an abstract idea, which fortunately

this time, was easily described physically. I slowly got into the topic of unjust

treatment by providing a context for the students to get set on. Gradually

then, I entered unfair treatment by telling them of the story of Joseph and

how he got to prison.

For an activity, I had the students create a scenario and mini-play

about unfair treatment. I think this activity fit well because they were also

studying about childrens rights in another class. This helped them apply

what they have learned, or assessed how far they have learned. The results

turned out pretty well! Although a few of them did not come up with realistic

scenarios, most of them did. This activity helped them see for themselves

what unfair treatments are actually happening in the now. Overall, I should

say that this lesson was rather successful because I met the objective and

had the students learn and even connect to other subjects.

LP 4 Biblical Studies

Dreams!

35 minutes

I continued the with the booklets topic of Dreams this time. Just like

the previous lesson plans, I delivered this one within the context of Josephs

life. I had the students write a bit about what they want to become in the

future. I think this technique is pretty good in trying to get to know the

students more because they wrote some raw ideas of what they wanted to

be in the future. After writing down their dreams for the future, I had them

write down how they think they might be able to contribute to society. This is

because a few days ago, a guest speaker spoke in chapel about the idea of

shalom. Thus I had them try to connect their ideas to a Biblical worldview

of trying to achieve restoration. Despite their young age, I was surprised to

know that most of them somehow understood the concept.

This reminded me that the human mind is very unpredictable because

learning speed may vary for each student. Some may still be young, but

capable of understanding very complex ideas and concepts.

LP 5 Biblical Studies

The Answer is NO

35 minutes

This lesson plan connects to the previous one, Dreams! Previously, I

had them write short reflections on what they want to be in the future and

had them also think of how they can connect that to the idea of Shalom.

This was for the purpose of having them get settled and comfortable on their

dream and think that everything is set for their future, considering that

they also managed to connect it to a Biblical worldview. The twist came when

I asked them, What if God says No?

Once again, I went back to Josephs story. I emphasized that Joseph

had an almost perfect life, considering that he was most favored by his

father. But then, everything he knew about comfort vanished when he was

sold into slavery.

I then had them recall and write down some of their saddest

experience in life. This caused the class mood to get gloomy. Despite the

activity being pretty successful, I did not realize that some of the students

actually came from broken homes. I learned through this experience to be

more sensitive next time. However, the purpose of this activity was to help

them sympathize of how Joseph must have felt, most likely even worse!
LP 6 Biblical Studies

Repentance

35 minutes

This lesson plan was the final one out of the six in the series of

Josephs story. I started the class with a game of building a house of cards in

groups. This was a very good opener, because the sense competition woke

the students up and had them all prepared for the lesson.

I explained that although their end results were different and creative,

it was the process that mattered more. I used this idea to segue to my lesson

repentance. Thankfully, I didnt find it so hard to help them understand the

idea that repentance is a process and is NOT easy. This is because, again,

they were prepared well for the lesson.

This experience helped me learn about the importance of beginning a

lesson properly to prepare the students for learning, Next to this is how to

use that beginning and segue to the lesson itself in a way that wont confuse

the students.
LP 7 English

Character Analysis

45 minutes

The class just finished reading the book The Pinballs by Betsy Biars

and it was now time for analyzing. Honestly, I have never conducted this sort

of activity before, thus, I felt a bit insecure of whether Ill be able to organize

their ideas later on.

I then gave them some time to pair up and note down all the

characters they can find in the book and write short descriptions about them.

The first problem arose here: they were very picky as to who they wanted to

pair up with. (I lacked preparation in this area because I did not anticipate

this simple but chaotic problem, which way more time than it should have).

The objective behind this was so that they will learn how to pay attention to

detail in novels.

After a few minutes, they finally got some notes written. Due to the

time eaten by the grouping-up part, I had to rush them and start listing

down their findings on the book. Thanks to technology (OneNote), I was able

to gather up their each of their works easily and share them to the whole

class.
 The main lesson that I learned from this experience is that I must plan

even the simplest part of the lesson thoroughly because especially for an

elementary class, disruptions are very likely to happen.

LP 8 English

Character Forecasting

55 minutes

Based on the analysis of The Pinballs by Betsy Biars in the previous

lesson plan, I had led the class towards innovating. By this, I mean using the

information about the books characters that they themselves have

gathered, and connecting them to prior knowledge form others classes such

as Unit of Inquiry, where they have been learning about childrens rights, and

merging them all together, forecasting the characters situations where they

still existent up to this day. (Imagination) A hidden objective in this activity

was for them to practice using descriptive words and phrases.

This is where I think I applied discovery learning because the students

were actually learning more from the book through this activity more than

just reading it as they have done in the past. More so, they were learning

ahead through innovating their prior knowledge of the given character

details into forecasts of how they imagine our current societys impact on the

characters development.
LP 9 Unit of Inquiry

Article Analysis

50 minutes

This is probably the most rushed lesson plan I have ever made and

conducted, due to the teacher notifying me in the morning, just a few hours

before the class. Thankfully, she gave me resources (Articles) with which I

can work on with the class. I then decided to do an article review. Thus, I split

the class into groups, and had them read the articles in jigsaw fashion.

This time, I actually planned out the groupings before class to make

sure that they wont have any complaints. It worked! The trouble now was

having the groupmates work together because being as young as they were,

not all had the attention-span to focus, keep quiet, and read. I could have

done a better job if I split the groups not just for the sake of having them

grouped up, but determining their levels characteristics.

Overall, I should say that I reached the objective, although the

students could have been more productive if I split them in groups of their

academic levels where the more advanced can dig deeper into the article.