Elementary Education Program

Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Lesson Plan

Name: Macayla Tyndall

Grade: 2
Topic/Concept: Celebrating Differences: Special Needs and Special Gifts
Materials/Resources:

• Text for lesson: Uniquely Wired by Julia Cook

• Crayons
• Half sheets of paper (2 per student)
• Timer
• Pre-cut hands
• Poster paper

Teaching Behavior Focus:

I will orchestrate discussions by asking questions that elicit, assess, and connect student learning.
During discussions after our coloring activities and even during our read aloud, I will aim to
provide wait time of +3 seconds after questions by the teacher and questions by the learners.

Learning Objectives (measurable):

Students will be able to explain what makes them unique and what we can learn from others’
differences.

Standards:

Essential Standard: 2.C.1 Understand how various cultures influence communities.

Clarifying Objective: 2.C.1.1 Explain how artistic expressions of diverse cultures contribute to
the community (stories, art, music, food, etc.).

Essential Standard: RL.2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and
how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

Assessment Plan (How will you know that your students met the objective?):

The teacher will listen to the whole and small group discussions to formatively assess students’
thinking during and after the read aloud. Students will answer and ask questions using who,
what, when, where, and why sentence starters.

Students will use the sentence structure of “Something unique about me is_______” to respond
at the end of the lesson on the hand cut-out provided. The teacher will paste the hands on a poster
to demonstrate their classroom differences. Students should be able to restate why our
differences are important to our classroom and our world.

New Vocabulary:
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

• Unique- being the only one of its kind

• Disability- a physical or mental problem that makes it difficult or impossible for a person
to walk, see, hear, speak, learn, or do other important things.
• Compromise-finding middle ground between two extremes in a disagreement
• Autism- refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social
skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication
• Behavior- the manner of acting or conducting yourself

Note: A detailed lesson plan is specific enough for another teacher to read and teach
effectively. There should not be any question regarding what to do or how to do it.

Lesson Development (hook/engage/launch, step by step in real time, include questions you
will ask in real time, closure/revisiting learning objectives):

Launch:

 “Good morning, friends. Today we will be learning about what it means to be different
and that being different is okay.” The teacher will then pass out two half sheets of paper
to each student.
 “Your classmates are passing out a yellow crayon to each of you. Your job is to draw
something on one of the sheets using only that color.” (Give students 2-3 minutes)
 “Now you can use the boxes of crayons at your table to draw what you want to on the
other sheet of paper.” (Give students 2-3 minutes)
 “Which one of these pictures would you want to hang up at home? Which one do you
think is more beautiful?” The students can “Think, Pair, Share” their pictures with a
partner and the teacher can call on a few students to share with the group. (One rationale
students may have is that the picture with more colors is more beautiful.)
 The teacher should ask students to join them at the carpet. “Let’s begin our discussion
time by you joining me on the carpet. I will call you by your team numbers.”
 “What does being different mean to you?” Do you think that being different is kind of
odd?” (The hope is to challenge the idea of “normal” and make the point that differences
do not make people undesirable, but beautiful.)
 “In today’s story, we will be talking about a boy who has a disability that makes him
behave in ways that some kids do not understand. What do you know about the word
disability?”

I Do:

After the launch, review the expectations of the class during a read aloud. “Can someone raise
their hand and tell me what the expectations are?” The teacher should then instruct the class to
pay close attention to the story because they will have to find out what makes the boy in the story
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

DIFFERENT and what gifts he has. The teacher will introduce the text, Uniquely Wired by Julia
Cook. “Have you ever met anyone who seemed different than you? Someone who is not like
your other friends? In this book we meet a boy who owns A LOT of watches. He behaves in
ways that some children do not understand and even thinks he is strange.”

The teacher will ask questions throughout the reading of the book to make it a discussion
activity. The potential story questions are as follows:
Page 9: What is something you could talk about for hours that you enjoy?
Page 16: Why does Isaac wear headphones? Do you like a lot of noise?
After page 19: Do you flap your arms like Isaac when you are nervous or upset? What makes
you feel better? (Turn and Talk)
Page 25: How are we the same as, or similar, to Isaac?

We Do:

After the read aloud, students will get in collaborative learning groups to discuss these question
prompts: “Did you learn any lessons from Isaac?” and “What special gifts do YOU have?”
Students should be able to explain the lessons they learned from the character with one another
and think about how their special gifts can affect others as well.

Once every group has finished discussing the questions, the teacher will call on each group to
share their thinking. Each group should be asked to justify their answer using the text and
classmates should be encouraged to ask further questions if they need clarification.

You Do:

The teacher will ask the students to brainstorm qualities that make them unique, and then choose
one of those qualities. The teacher should pass out a pre-cut hand to every student and give them
the sentence structure of “Something unique about me is______.” The teacher will explain that
differences in our class and in our world are something to be celebrated and that these
differences create learning opportunities.

Closure:

At the end, students will join the teacher back in their spots on the carpet with their hands that
they have written on. Each student will read their sentence about what makes them unique and
then put it on the poster called “Celebrating Differences in Our Class.” The teacher will conclude
by saying that “For the rest of the year I want our class to embrace the ways that we differ from
one another and see these things as learning opportunities. This poster should get us thinking
over the next week of how we can include the Exceptional Children’s class in our some of our
daily activities.”