FRAMEWORK FOR PLANNING A WHOLE GROUP LITERACY LESSON

Name: Brittney Recht

Lesson Title: Sun, Moon & Stars

Grade Level: Kinder/1st grade

Curriculum Resource(s):
[list any textbook or other curriculum resource that was used in planning this lesson.]

-EL Curriculum
-Planbook.com

Learning Goal:
[Clearly articulate what you want students to know / be able to do in this lesson.]

SWBAT describe what the child and the sun do at the end of Summer Sun Risin’ then describe
what they personally do when the sun is rising and setting.

ELL objective: produce sentences with S-V-C construction with a noun as the subject, with
subject-verb agreement.

Arizona College and Career Readiness (Common Core) Standards Addressed:

[List grade level and standard; write out complete standard]

1.RL.2 Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central
message or lesson.
1.RL.3 Describe characters, setting, and major events in a story, using key details.
1.RL.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.
1.SL.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics
and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
1.SL2. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information
presented orally or through other media.
1.W.8 With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather
information from provided sources to answer a question.

The Literacy Activity (or set of tasks):

Here, you must state the EXACT task/activity that students will work on in the lesson, and
explain WHY you chose that task/activity

The students will have the opportunity to go outside and look where the sun is in the sky
throughout the day. This will show the students a real life example of how the sun moves
throughout the day. Real life experiences are effective in helping students understand specific
concepts.

The students will engage in a discussion around the book Summer Sun Risin’. This will help
students see another example of how the sun looks throughout the day. The students will be
able to make personal connections about the different activities they do at certain parts of the
 day. Also, the students will be able to talk about the story and the characteristics they notice
about the characters and the setting.

The students will write sentence stems in their journals. This will allow time for the students to
practice their writing skills and document what they have learned from the whole group lesson.

ANTICIPATED STUDENT RESPONSES: Thinking about the Students Thinking

[Here describe what students are likely to do or say in response to this lesson. What
kind of strategies or reactions might you expect? Be as specific as possible in
describing students’ strategies. What kinds of misconceptions might students have?
What might be challenging for students? What might be easy for students?]

In response to this lesson, I anticipate some students will have the misconception
that the sun physically rises or sets and they won’t fully understand that day and
night are caused by the earths movement around the sun. Hopefully, since we have
been learning about this concept for a few days now it will lessen the amount of
students that have this misconception. This can be a challenging concept to grasp for
some students because it is somewhat ambiguous. Something I think will be easy for
the students is discussing the different activities they engage in during the day and
night.

EXTENSIONS UP AND DOWN

Describe how you could adapt the task (i.e., task structure, text, and/or grouping) for students
who struggle with the skill (extensions down) and for students who are ready for an additional
challenge (extensions up).

To adapt the discussion aspect of the lesson, I will use the think-pair-strategy. Some students
have difficulty expressing their thoughts to the entire class. Therefore this strategy will help
those students because they only have to share with their partner and don’t have to share with
the entire class if they don’t feel comfortable. But, it still ensures that every student
participates. To adapt the writing aspect of the lesson, I will provide a visual on the white
board for all the students and individual letter charts for the students that need even further
support. To challenge the students that finish their sentence stems before the rest of the class,
I will prompt the students to see if they can write even more sentences about what they do
during the day or what they saw characters doing during the day.
 Materials & Tools

Consider:
What materials or tools will you need?
How will these materials support your teaching or make the ideas easier for the
students to understand?

Description of the materials you will have available for students:

The materials the teacher needs for this lesson are the book Summer Sun Risin’ and a white
board. Using literature as a way to introduce a concept, such as day and night, it will help the
students understand more concretely. The white board will be used to provide a visual of a
sentence stem for the students to refer back to when they are struggling with their writing.
The materials that will be available for the students during the lesson are chalk, visual letter
charts and their writing journals. The chalk will be used for the launch part of the lesson. The
visual letter charts and writing journals will be used during the small group part of the lesson.
The individual letter charts will help support students that need extra help with their writing.

3 PART LESSON PLAN

1) BEFORE: Introduction
2) Consider how you will:
Transition students into the lesson
Introduce the task
Get the students ready.
Draw on prior knowledge and experience.
Make sure all students understand what you are asking. Consider ways to
support English learners
Include SPECIFIC QUESTIONS that you will ask students during this part of the
lesson.

BEFORE -- YOUR PLAN for what teacher and students will do and WHY:

To begin the lesson I will review the topic we have been learning about for the past few weeks-
the sun, the moon and the stars. I will ask the students, “if we go outside right now, what do
you think we will see? The sun, the moon or the stars?” I will allow the students to answer
then I will tell them let’s go find out. Before the whole group lesson, I will engage the learner
by doing a sun movement routine. I will have the class go outside to look at the position of the
sun and their own shadows. They will be in pairs and person A will draw the shadow of person
B, then they will switch. The students will write their name on their shadow to remember which
one is theirs when we revisit them later. Once this is done we will reconvene in the classroom.
We will have a discussion of where they saw the sun in the sky at that specific moment and
where they predict it will be when they look at it later in the day. We will revisit the shadows
before the students go to lunch then one more time before the students leave for the day.
Some questions I will ask in this section are: “Where in the sky did you see the sun?” “Where
do you think the sun will be later in the day? In the same place? In a different place? Why do
you think this?” “What is something you have already learned about the sun?”
2) DURING

Consider how you will:

Support students as they are working
Find out about students’ thinking
Support students’ thinking
Encourage students to test out their own ideas.
Support diverse groups of learners. For example, consider specific supports
that will be needed for Emergent Bilinguals.
Pose questions that help students extend their understanding
Include specific questions that you will ask students during this part of the
lesson.

YOUR PLAN for what teacher and students will do and WHY:

During the whole group lesson, I will read the book Summer Sun Risin’. The students will be
sitting in pairs for the “think-pair-share protocol” to be used throughout the lesson. I will read
this book to show the students the progression of a day from sunrise to sunset. During the
read aloud I will review specific vocabulary words such as “sinking” and “setting”. These are
two words used to describe the suns movement but they might cause some confusion for
students because the sun isn’t truly sinking or setting, the earth is just moving around it. Some
questions I will ask are: “What do you think it means that the sun is sinking or setting? Why do
you think this? How do you know?” This will help the students understand that these are two
common words we use when describing the sun going down and it becoming night. During the
read aloud, I will engage the students in the story. I will ask them questions like: “what do you
notice about the sun here? What about the sun now?” “What are the characters doing while the
sun is up? What are they doing when the sun is setting? What are they doing when the sun is
completely down?” I will have the students use the think-pair-strategy throughout the read
aloud. One question I will ask the students to discuss with their partners is, “what are some of
the things you personally do when the sun is rising, when the sun out, when the sun is setting
and when the sun is down?” This will allow students to compare their personal experiences to
the experiences of the characters in the book. This will help make the concept of day and night
more concrete for the students.

After the whole group lesson, I will introduce a sentence stem for the students to write in their
writing journals. I will have two separate sentences stems, one for the kindergarten students
and one for the first grade students. I will write the sentence stems on the white board for
students to use as a reference while they are writing. The kindergarten sentence stem will be
“The summer sun comes up.” The kindergarteners will write this sentence stem in their
journals then draw a picture to go with it. The first grade sentence stem will begin with the
same one as the kindergarteners but then they will add to it. They will add “When the summer
sun is in the sky, I _______. When the summer sun goes down, I ________” The students will
have to fill in the blanks with something they do during that certain time of day. Before
sending them to their table to begin working, we will brainstorm different ideas that they could
use in the blanks and I will write them on the white board to use for support. While the
students are writing in the journals, I will be walking around the classroom to support those
who need it.
3) AFTER: Summarizing / Final Discussion

Consider how you will:

End the lesson
Summarize the important ideas
Think about how to extend the children’s thinking.
Include SPECIFIC QUESTIONS that you will ask students during this part of the
lesson.

YOUR PLAN for what teacher and students will do and WHY:

To end the lesson, we will discuss the variety of activities people do in the morning, during the
day and in the evening. The students can give examples from their own lives or from the book
Summer Sun Risin’. I will ask questions like: “what do people do when the sun is rising? When
the sun is in the sky? When the sun is setting? When the sun is down?” This will give me and
idea if the students understand the difference between day time and night time- both how the
sky visually looks and the activities they participate in. To extend the children’s thinking, I
could ask questions like: “What do you think the other side of the world looks like when the
sun is in our sky? Or when our sun is down? Do you think they see the sun when we see it?
Why do you think that?” “Do you think the other parts of the world do similar activities as us?
Or do you think they are different?”

ASSESSMENT

How will you assess what students learned?

One way I will assess the students is by looking at their writing journals. I will look at what
they wrote and the pictures they drew. This will give me and idea of what the students learned
in this lesson. I will also assess the children during out final discussion. I will listen to the
student’s responses. If the students are able to discuss what the characters in the book do and
what they personally do during the day and night, then I know they have learned my lesson
objective.

ACCOMMODATIONS FOR OTHER STUDENTS

Select another group of students in your classroom who may have specific learning needs
(e.g., inclusion students, gifted students, students who need additional academic support) and
describe how you will adapt the lesson, as appropriate, to meet their needs.
Some students struggle with writing. They feel discouraged and that they cannot successfully
write. These students need more academic support in this area. To adapt the writing part of
the lesson, I will provide one-on-one support for the students that I know need the extra push.
I will also provide these students with individual letter charts at their desk to use as a visual
support. Another way to adapt this part of the lesson is to write the sentence stems on a piece
of paper to put at the student’s desks to act as another visual support. These students
sometimes struggle with only having the sentence stems on the white board because they
have to continuously look at the board then look back at their paper to write. By providing the
sentence stems right in front of them I think could help ease a little bit of their frustration.