Name: Samantha Lane

CT and School: Mrs. Thomas, Peak View Elementary School

Date of Presentation: October 3, 2016
Date Submitted to CT: September 30, 2016

LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

A. TITLE/TYPE OF LESSON
Read Aloud: Spinning Spiders by Melvin Berger

B. CONTEXT OF LESSON
The read aloud is done before their reading centers which they have every Monday, so
the lesson tied into their daily schedule and allowed for a good follow up assessment.
Every week my teacher focuses literacy instruction around a certain animal of her choice.
The book I am reading is about spiders, which is the animal my kids are starting this
week. It also builds on their prior knowledge of the characteristics of an insect, which is
different from an arachnid.

C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand Students will Know Students will know that Do Students will be able to
understand that while spiders all spiders have 8 legs, 2 body tell me the three things that all
vary in many physical ways, all parts, and create some type of spiders must have (8 legs, 2
of them are arachnids and not web to trap prey. Students will body parts, create a web). They
insects. Students will also know the differences between will be able to create their own
understand that while spiders can an arachnid and an insect. spider and write about it, while
be scary, they are an important keeping in mind these aspects
part of our ecosystem and that must be included.
prevent other creatures from
overpopulating.

D. ASSESSING LEARNING
My students will be split into their spelling groups and come to me in groups of various
sizes. I will tell my kids that there are over 30,000 kinds of spiders, but today they will be
creating their own spider. Before we start the activity, I will review with them the parts
that all of their spiders have to have (8 legs, 2 body parts, and must create a web). I will
ask them, Do you guys remember what things are the same about all spiders? and make
sure they remember the most important facts from the story.
After we go over what they must have, I will give them paper with a space for drawing
on the top and lines for writing on the bottom. They will be able to draw their spider and
give it a name. Then I will ask them to write a few sentences about their spider. They can
talk about where it lives, what it eats, or what it looks like.
Once everyone has finished their spider, we will go around the table and share our spiders
with everyone. We will all make sure together that their spider has 8 legs, two body parts,
and a web with it. If we finish before the station is over, we can look through the book
again and search for webs in the illustrations. There are a lot in the book, and this can
help kids learn places to look for webs in their own homes.
Name: Samantha Lane
CT and School: Mrs. Thomas, Peak View Elementary School
Date of Presentation: October 3, 2016
Date Submitted to CT: September 30, 2016

E. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (and NATIONAL

STANDARDS if required)
SOL 1.10 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension for a variety of
nonfiction texts
a) Preview the selection.
b) Use prior and background knowledge as context for new learning.
d) Identify text features such as pictures, headings, charts, and captions
SOL 1.2 The student will write legibly
a) Form letters correctly
b) Space words within sentences
c) Use the alphabetic code to write unknown words phonetically
SOL 1.3 The student will write to communicate ideas for a variety of purposes
a) Generate ideas
b) Focus on one topic
g) Share writing with others

F. MATERIALS NEEDED
Spinning Spiders by Melvin Berger (supplied by CT)
Drawing/Writing paper (supplied by CT)
Pencils/Crayons (supplied by CT)

G. PROCEDURE
- Preparation
o Get the kids seated on the carpet with me sitting at the front
- Introduction
o If the students have not been told that they will be learning about that
spiders that week, I will need to introduce that to them. Instead of just
telling them, I can ask them what they think we might be learning about.
I could have them reference my CTs bookshelf if they cant figure it out,
which if filled with books on spiders and insects.
o After telling the students they will be reading about spiders, I will ask
them, What do you know about spiders already? so that I can build my
read aloud around their prior knowledge as I go.
o I will then tell them the title of the book and show them the front cover. I
will ask them what they think the book will be about based on the title.
Since the title is Spinning Spiders, the book mainly focuses around how
spiders make their webs.
- During the Reading
o At the very beginning of the book there is a page full of pictures of
different spiders with no words. I will show the class these two pages and
ask them what all of the spiders have in common. I will then ask them
what is different about the spiders.
o The first three pages contain illustrations of places that spider webs are
commonly found in. After reading each of these pages, show the students
the illustrations and ask them if they can see the spider webs in the
pictures.
o After these pages, the book informs us that spiders are arachnids. I will
have the students say the word arachnid so that they have the verbal
Name: Samantha Lane
CT and School: Mrs. Thomas, Peak View Elementary School
Date of Presentation: October 3, 2016
Date Submitted to CT: September 30, 2016

memory of the word. I will then ask them how familiar they are with
other arachnids listed, such as scorpions and ticks.
o About halfway through the book there is a section that compares
arachnids and insects. The students have learned about insects in the past
and know that they have 6 legs, three body parts, and most adult insects
have wings. I will pause at this part and ask the students what they
remember about insects as a review so that they can compare arachnids
and insects.
o At the end of the book, there is a section on how spiders eat insects that
can be a nuisance to us and keep the ecosystem in balance. I will ask the
students what they normally do when they see spider and talk about how
important they care even if they can be scary.
- Closure
o I will close the read aloud by asking the students what they learned about
spiders from the book. We can discuss the different types of webs they
learned about, and review what the key parts of a spider are.
o We will talk about what you should do if you see a spider in your house
and how you can help keep spiders safe like they keep us safe.
o I will then introduce the activity I will do in my center and give the
attention back to my CT.

H. DIFFERENTIATION
For this activity, the main concern is that the students will not understand the story or that
they will not retain the parts that might be more important. Luckily I will be working on
them pretty one-on-one, so I will be able to scaffold what they do know in a smaller
group setting so that they are able to complete the assessment activity.
A lot of my students are on very different levels in terms of reading and writing. Some of
them can form complete sentences with proper grammar and punctuation, while some of
them can barely write their own name. It might become frustrating and not realistic for
them to write so many sentences in such a short amount of time on a topic they just
learned about. For this reason, I will remain flexible about how many sentences my kids
have to write. The main point of the activity is that they know the characteristics of the
spider, so I dont want to miss the point in the process of trying to force them to write a
complete sentence.
I will have the book at my station with me, so for any ELL students I will have the
pictures and words right in front of us so we can work together to help them complete
their picture and sentences.

I. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU
DO ABOUT IT?
One thing that could go wrong is that, like in my Differentiation section, my kids wont
understand the content I am reading to them and wont connect with the story. They
could grow bored and not really care or want to listen. I think in this case I would try to
keep reading and maybe connect it with myself so that my kids might be interested in my
story. Kids really like to hear about their teachers, so this can sometimes be a way to
reroute a lesson that isnt working.
Another thing that could go wrong is that my kids wont want to do the assessment
activity I have planned for them. In this case, I find it can be helpful to say that I will do
Name: Samantha Lane
CT and School: Mrs. Thomas, Peak View Elementary School
Date of Presentation: October 3, 2016
Date Submitted to CT: September 30, 2016

the activity with them. Kids are much more willing to do something along with their
teacher, as opposed to being forced to do something while the teacher just watches. This
will also give me a chance to share my ideas with students while their share theirs with
me.
Name: Samantha Lane
CT and School: Mrs. Thomas, Peak View Elementary School
Date of Presentation: October 3, 2016
Date Submitted to CT: September 30, 2016

Lesson Implementation Reflection

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

I. How did your actual teaching of the lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes
and explain why you made them.

My lesson plan did not work out as well as I wanted to because my kids werent on their best
behavior that day. Not to place all the blame on them, but since I am a new presence in the
class sometimes I can be hard to get them to listen to me because I am still new and they
dont consider me their full teacher yet. My kids were talking while I was trying to read and
from the very beginning it was very hard to get them under control. I was a little nervous so
they might have picked up on that and taken advantage of it. My teacher came over shortly
after I started and confronted my class for being disrespectful while I was talking and after
that they quieted down. I didnt really do as much discussion as I wanted to because I was a
little frazzled after that happened and I just wanted to get through the book without any more
issues.

II. Based on the assessment you created, what can you conclude about your impact on
student learning? Did they learn? Who learned? What did they learn? What evidence
can you offer that your conclusions are valid?

Reflecting on my assessment, I was fairly satisfied with how many kids grasped the concepts
from the book. Even though my read aloud was a little derailed, there were students who
came up to me after the read aloud and told me that they learned some new things about the
webs different spiders can make. One child said that they learned that spiders have spinnerets,
which are what the spider uses to spin webs. At my station, almost all of my children were
able to tell me what the three characteristics of a spider were. I had to prompt them a little bit
more to remind them that all spiders make a web, but I think this is because the way I phrased
the question was a little confusing for them. I checked all of my kids papers when they were
done, and every single one of them gave their spider 2 body parts, 8 legs, and a web. So this
part of the lesson was successful, as all of them remembered this when I prompted them
about it. I wish that they had remembered more facts from the book we read, but since they
were a little frazzled, as was I, about their behavior and being disciplined by their teacher, it
is understandable that they didnt remember as much.

III. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice
in a better or more thorough way if you were to teach this lesson again.

If I were to teach this lesson, I would definitely prepare better in terms of classroom
management. I have always struggled to get younger kids under control and I think that if I
were able to do this more effectively my entire lesson would be better. Assuming their
behavior was better, I actually think my kids would be able to remember more information
than I asked them to. They were all ready with the information about the spiders and I think
that in the future, I could have an activity focusing more on the different types of web from
the book even though it was newer information for them. I didnt want my activity to be
Name: Samantha Lane
CT and School: Mrs. Thomas, Peak View Elementary School
Date of Presentation: October 3, 2016
Date Submitted to CT: September 30, 2016

difficult for my kids, but if my lesson were more successful mechanically next time I think I
could challenge them a little bit more with my activity.

IV. Based on the assessment data you collected, what would you do/teach next if you were
the classroom teacher?

Since my kids seemed to have a pretty good grasp on the basic parts of a spider, I would go
further with the information side of it and have them learn different things about spiders. I
would try to pick another book that maybe displays more parts of the spider and more
specific types of spiders and more information about them. This would not only expand their
vocab, but also help them learn how to retain the most relevant information from a text. The
key to a lesson like this is always scaffolding, and making sure your kids have a good
foundational understanding before you challenge them with harder texts. If I can establish
that in the initial lesson about spiders, my kids will be able to learn more and write about
more and understand more than they even realized they could.

V. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had
reinforced about young children as learners?

I have definitely learned that kids are unpredictable and you never know when youre not
going to have their full cooperation with your lesson. They can be talkative and disruptive
and when they dont want to listen to you, you will definitely be able to tell. I also learned
that students are definitely going to learn less after they have been scolded by a teacher or
have been told theyre on thin ice with their teacher. My kids had a face paint party that day,
and my teacher told them that if they didnt earn it back after our read aloud they wouldnt be
able to do it. So this kind of tension can really affect how kids learn. I can see how if this
were an environment they were in every day, they would be severely affected learning-wise
because its hard to focus on anything else other than your teacher being upset with you.
Unfortunately, even the best classroom management plans cant account for your kids just
having a bad day, you just have to make sure you and your kids have the least amount of bad
days possible to save you all a lot of grief later on.

VI. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had
reinforced about teaching?

I have definitely learned that in teaching, you have to try to keep your cool as long and as
much as possible. I was nervous and overwhelmed during my lesson on Monday, and my kids
and CT could tell. It can be hard to keep your composure when youre trying to get through a
lesson and your kids arent cooperating with you. I think in teaching, it can be easy to see
your students as kids who are there to learn and forget that they are people too. They arent
perfect, they are going to push your buttons, and you wont always see eye to eye on things.
Thats just part of being human. The key to teaching is being able to read a situation like that
and not letting it get too out of hand. If I had had the option, I probably wouldnt have done
the read aloud at that time because before I even started I could tell they werent engaged.
You dont have to adjust your lesson every time your kids seem uninterested, but its
important to have a back-up plan for your lessons and be flexible with how you manage your
kids when theyre trying to manage you.
Name: Samantha Lane
CT and School: Mrs. Thomas, Peak View Elementary School
Date of Presentation: October 3, 2016
Date Submitted to CT: September 30, 2016

VII. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had
reinforced about yourself?

I kind of already knew this about myself, but I am definitely someone who can get
very taken over by their emotions. I have a tendency to shut down when something
isnt working how I want it and struggle being flexible enough to respond to my kids
when they deviate from my lesson plans. I dont think you need to be completely
emotionless as a teacher, because you dont connect with your kids that way and you
lose so much of yourself. But you definitely need to be able to use your emotions in a
positive and constructive way, rather than being overcome with them. I think this will
be one of my biggest obstacles as a teacher, but I am hoping that in my practicum I
will be able to observe my teacher and the way she deals with situations like this. I
have a habit of trying to figure things out for myself without asking for help, so this
will be one of those times when I need to overcome that and reach out to as many
people as I can.