5/23/2013

Early Childhood Education

Learning Experience Template

Name: Mary Horvath Lesson Title: Food Chain Shuffle

Date: Grade Level: Preschool Circle one: ECE PKSN
Standard(s)/Guideline(s):
Cognition and General Knowledge, Science Inquiry and Application, Inquiry: Describe, compare, sort, classify, and order.
Language and Literacy, Listening and Speaking, Expressive Language: With modeling and support, use words acquired through conversations and shared
reading experiences. (Vocabulary)
Pre-assessment of current knowledge: I will do a lesson about predators versus prey so that learning will be a pre-assessment of what students know about
many predators and prey in a food chain.

Instructional Objectives (2-3) Assessment of Student Learning Learning Experience

Two- Three Assessed
Instructional Objective(s):
The student will be able to
distinguish where animals should
go on a food chain by sorting,
describing, ordering, and
comparing pictures of animals.
The student will be able to use
vocabulary learned through this
lesson and the previous one about
while describing their experience.
One Assessed Developmental
Skill:
The student will be able to
physically manipulate and place
pictures on the food chain map.
Safety Considerations:
Students use the paper materials
in an appropriate way making sure
to not hurt themselves or others by
throwing them.
Identify Evidence:
The teacher should make a checklist for each student with
how many pictures the students placed in the correct
order. Pictures of their work can also be taken. (For
example, if there are three spots on a food chain, how
many out of three was each student able to get correct).
Anecdotal records can also be taken to see if students
where able to use the vocabulary they just learned
throughout the lesson.
Program Monitoring:
Based on the checklist, if 80% of the class was able to get
each picture in the correct spot, the class can move on. If
not, this might be a topic worth revisiting using literature,
videos, and more sentence stems to scaffold learning. If
70% can use at least one academic language term during
the activity, the class can move on. If not, teachers should
emphasize vocabulary implementation in another lesson
like this but also other lessons so students can practice
this skill.
Academic Language:
Food chain, producer, primary consumers, secondary
consumers, predator, prey, organism, animal, plant
Procedural steps:
1. In groups of 4-6, the teacher will show students a
pre-made, filled-out food chain with examples and
labels.
2. The teacher will go through the food chain, defining
vocabulary and answering any questions the
students may have. The teacher can also connect
this learning to their previous lesson about predators
and prey.
3. Each student will be given a food chain template
with vocabulary labels and pictures of different
organisms that are a part of a certain food chain.
4. Students will place the pictures of the organisms
where they think they belong on the food chain.
5. After all the students are done, the teacher and
group will discuss their findings, what they thought
was difficult or easy as well as fix any
misconceptions still had.
Authentic Materials:
Food chain templates, pictures of organisms
Adult Roles:
Give instructions
Guide small group investigations
Scaffold learning
Guide final discussion and provide sentence stems
 5/23/2013
Early Childhood Education
Learning Experience Template

Resources & References:

*attached separately

Reflection: (What have you learned about your students? How will this inform future instruction?)

I learned that some of my students remembered more about the previous lesson than others. During the pre-assessment some students

were able to supply more information about predators and prey. Some students remembered everything, some just needed a reminder, and others

pretty much forgot everything. Next time, maybe I will leave the anchor chart somewhere in the classroom so students are actively able to come

back to the lesson and be constantly reminded.

The students really wanted to get the order right. However, it was easier to start with parts rather than the food chain as a whole. Many of

them were able to narrow it down by having them start with the “big predator”. Then they could decide which one was the “small prey”. Some of the

students, about six of them, needed a little prompting. Usually for this if I just asked, “Which one eats the other?” they were able to figure it out.

They definitely struggled more with the two preys. Next time, I would scaffold this learning more for some students by having one of the

animals/organisms already placed so they could decide between the two. This would make it less overwhelming and also give them a better chance

at getting it correct! At the end of the day, some students thrived, some needed a little prompting, and some did not care enough to really try.

While this was my last lesson for this concept, this concept could still continue being built. Another lesson that could be built on this one

could be a food web. Students are beginning to understand food chains, but they could also explore “horizontal/diagonal” relationships rather than

just “vertical” relationships. This could be done similarly to this activity but with different box layouts that represent a food web. However, I would

keep reviewing predators and prey to make sure this foundation is built before continuing on with this idea.