Kimberly Granato

EDR 317
Handwriting; Lower case b
Grade: Kindergarten
Objectives:
Students will be able to accurately write the lower case form of the letter b so that it is
recognizable.
Students will be able to point to each part of the lower case b and say which part of the
description it is. (Dive down and swim back up, go around, bump at the bottom)
Given 15 minutes, students will be able to correctly write lower case b at least 10 times.
Formative and Summative Assessment:
Students will have met the objective of this lesson if they are able to accurately write the
lower case form of the letter b at least 5 times so that it is recognizable to someone who
is reading it. They will also have met the objectives if they are able to point to and say
all of the aspects of the lowercase b that helps them form the letter. To decide whether
or not the students have met the objective, I will monitor how well they do with writing
the letter and saying the steps of it out loud.
Materials/Standards:
Shaving Cream
Paper Plates
Paper Towels
Letter Template Paper (If Needed)
Pencils (If Needed)
CC.1.1.K.B Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print
Introduction:
Good morning my friends! Can anyone tell me what letter this is? Excellent, it is the
letter b! Do you think that it is in its uppercase form, or lowercase form? Good job! Now
lets take a close look at this letter, can anyone see any features of this letter that
resemble another letter you might know? For example does it have similar curves like
an o or maybe a c? Now lets think about the sound that the letter b makes, and lets
all say it together! Good job, what about any words that you know that begin with the

letter b? Awesome! Now that you know some information about lowercase b, lets learn
how to write it!
Teaching Model:
Friends, I am going to let you in on a little secret of mine. When I have to write out
words, I first like to think hard about what the individual letters look like and lock those
letter shapes into my brain. By doing this, it will help me when I have to write the letter
on paper because I already know what it looks like. So now, I am going to introduce you
to the letter lowercase b. Watch me first write lowercase b with my sky writer (pointer
finger in the air). I dive down and swim right back up and over. I go around and bump
at the bottom. Watch me write the lowercase b again my friends, and make sure to lock
it in your brains. Good job watching! Now lets try it together.

Guided Practice:
Everyone, lets put our sky writers high up in the air! I am going to go through the steps
to write the lowercase b. After I say and demonstrate each step you will repeat it back
to me out loud! So first, lets dive down. Now its your turn to dive down, good job! Now
lets swim back up and over. Lastly, lets go around and bump it at the bottom. Awesome
job with your sky writers friends, now lets take a few minutes and practice writing
lowercase b. Can everyone turn to the right now and we are going to practice writing
lowercase b on our friends back! (Direct students in the right direction, reinforcing that it
is the right rather then left) Good job friends!
Independent Practice and Application:
Now that we have all mastered writing the letter lowercase b with our skywriters, we are
now going to each practice with shaving cream! Before we get our hands messy, lets go
over some rules that will keep us all safe and clean! Shaving cream is not meant to be
put in our mouths or eyes, so make sure that you do not touch your face with the hand
that was in the shaving cream. Try to keep one hand clean at all times by using it to
hold onto the plate so it does not move around the table. The opposite hand will be
used to write in the shaving creams. Since none of us want shaving cream to get on our
clothes, make sure to not touch any of your friends or yourselves during this activity.
Lastly, once we are finished make sure to keep your hands high up in the air until you
wash them so you do not accidentally touch anything that is in the classroom! Now lets
begin! Using the shaving cream that is on the paper plate in front of you, try writing out
our friend, lowercase b! Do not worry about messing up because the good thing about
shaving cream is that you can smear it around on your plate and start right back over

again! Does anyone want to demonstrate how they write lowercase b and say their
thought process out loud like I did earlier? Good job! Keep up the beautiful work
friends, you can keep writing in your shaving cream until it is time to rotate groups!
Closure:
Now, can anyone tell me the name of the letter that we learned to write today? That is
correct, we learned lowercase b! Before we move on, we are all going to say the steps
to writing lowercase b out loud while using our skywriters. Awesome job! Now that you
have mastered lowercase b, you will be able to write words that have that letter in it!
Differentiation:
For the students who are struggling with writing the letter out, I will start them off with a
piece of paper that has the letter pre written on it in either dashes or dots. The students
will be then be able to trace the letters out which will help them memorize the shape of
the letter. To slowly work the student up to the point of writing the letter on their own,
reduce the amount of dots or dashes that are used to represent the letter. By doing this,
it will slowly bring the student to the point where they can write the letter without having
to rely on a template. For the students who are advanced, I will challenge them by
asking if they can still write the letter out with their eyes closed. This will have the
students rely solely on memory since they will not be able to see what they are writing,
or have the opportunity to look at a visual that might be hanging in the classroom. If
there is a student who might have a sensory issue, provide them with a chalk board,
chalk, and a wet sponge eraser to complete this activity. Depending on their level,
follow the differentiation.
Reflection on Planning
Compared to other lesson plans that I have had to write, I found this one rather easy
based on the fact that it was already a set topic I had to plan. Since this lesson is for the
handwriting portion of the wheel, I already had certain guidelines that my mentor
teacher wanted me to follow to keep with previous lessons. This helped me because it
gave me something to go off of and base my lesson around. For this lesson, I did not
have to focus a lot on the grouping of the students since they will already be in their
wheel groups, but instead I had to focus on if the activity was appropriate for certain
students. Thinking about the individual students is what lead me to want to use shaving
cream to practice their letters rather than paper and pencil. Usually the students use a
chalk board to write their letters on and I have noticed some students arent focusing as
much with this. Because of that observation I wanted to try a different form of writing

that they have not used before with the hopes they will be excited about it and focus
more on it.
Reflection on Teaching
From completing this lesson, I knew my instructional objectives were met by whether or
not the students were able to correctly write the letter lower case b. I had noticed that
while they were drawing the letter, they were also saying the directions on how to create
the letter (dive down, swim back up...) to themselves as well which met another one of
the learning objectives. Based on these objectives and the assessment I had planned, I
was able to tell which students were comfortable with writing the lower case b and which
students still needed support with it. A handful of the students were confusing lower
case b with lower case d which led me to believe that they had the correct shape
memorized they were just going in the wrong direction. One struggle I had with my
lesson was being able to hold the students attention before the shaving cream and also
during the shaving cream. Since they were excited to work with it, it was hard to hold
the students attention to go over the letter shape before hand and it was also hard to
keep the students on task during the shaving cream. After speaking with my mentor
teacher about this, she told me that after a few times of getting use to the shaving cream
the students will settle down and it will be easier to get through the activity with them.
Based on this, I am looking forward to planning one or two more activities like this for
various letters.