Name: Tabitha Core

Grade Level: 4th grade

Subject Taught: WG reading
Observation Date: April 6, 2016
Lesson Plan Components:
CC Standards and/or Essential Standards: What are the standards
in your LP?
I Can Statement: I can understand the meaning of common idioms.
Totally a logistical issue, but make sure youre using verbs (skills) that
that you can see/evaluate.
Suggestion: I can explain the literal meaning of common idioms.

Your actions
Opener:
Who remembers what we talked about
a couple weeks ago about idioms? Do
you remember what they were, what
we talked about?

STOF Alignment/Comments
Nice connection to what they had
previously learned (4g).

We read an article about learning

English as a second language being
difficult with these idioms?
Today were going to work on.

Were going to read a story today that

has figurative language My Teacher
Likes to SayRead aloud introduction.

What were some of the weird

expressions that we heard in this
book? (ears on the wall) So what

You were writing the I can statement and

this kind of dwindled I didnt hear you
actually say what they would be doing
today? I actually like the practice of
writing the I can statement WITH the
students, but just be sure to be clear.
(3b)
Again, be clear about the purpose here?
Are they just listening for the silly
figurative language that is used? If so,
just be clear about that. (3a)
This is a great opportunity to use
kid lit! Your students were all
engaged and seemed to enjoy
being read to!! (3a, 4d)
You modeled a really nice tone of
voice and fluency!
You went through some of the idioms and

could that mean?

students discussed what they meant.

This truly felt like a conversation with the
kids they were very excited and
engaged in it.
This may take too much time, but
to get total participation, after you
discussed what the idiom meant,
maybe you could ask them to think
about it in relation to their life (i.e.
Think about the apple fell from the
tree, can you think of someone
people might compare you to?)
Discipline specific vocabulary, 3a
there are so many elements of
figurative language. Its important
they know the differences in the
types of figurative language (you
briefly you discussed idioms, but
what about an anchor chart or
some visual to help them see the
different types of figurative
language to decipher between all
of them?)
o You did a nice job of
deciphering between literal
and figurative!

Gave out index cards to students. Im

going to give you an index card and
then Ill tell you what Im going to do
with it.
So, what you are going to do with
these, is similar to what we did
yesterday. Im going to start and I am
going to read an expression, an idiom.
Whoever has the meaning is going to
stand up and then they are going to
read their other idiom. And, what
youre going to have to do is act out
your idiom. What it literally means

I love this activity! It requires them to

listen actively and gives them a chance
to play by acting it out. Seems like this
fits the majority of your students
personalities?! (2b)
Your students were super excited
and they are a rowdy bunch. The
noise doesnt bother me, as long
as its productive! I appreciate you
letting them be kids and show their
excitement!
Maybe since figurative language is
a bit tricky, you could give them a
chance to talk with the people

We have not yet come up with an

idiom definition to write in our
notebooks. What is part of our
definition? You wrote them on the
board. Lets combine these and see if
you can come up with a good
definition of idioms.

around them to think through it?

(3d, 2d strategies for students
with special needs)
Chance for peer assessment/self
assessment Tell them, I want
you to think about what the idiom
means and then when your
classmate thinks they have the
literal meaning, see if you thought
if it the same way. (4g)
You did a great job putting the
idioms in a context of a situation to
help them understand it better!
(3b, 4g, 2d)

I LOVE this sequence!!!! This is

definitely a BEST practice for vocabulary
instruction to get input from the
students based on their experiences.
The only suggestion I have is to tell them
they will be doing this in the beginning,
so theyre thinking through it/about it, as
the lesson progresses.
Again, your students were ALL engaged
in this, thinking about it, writing about it.
(3b!!)

Closure:
With this little piece of paper, I want
you to write an idiom, one of the ones
we talked about, and youre going to
draw a picture of it.
The wall in the back is going to be our
wall of idioms. As youre reading
during the day, if you come across an
idiom, I want you to write the idiom
and add it to our wall. The only way
you really learn idioms is by seeing
them in the context and making sense
of them.
The student asked a question for
clarification you responded, and then
wrote an example on the board.

Love this!!! Its so true they will learn

idioms by being immersed in them in
their texts and just making sense of what
they mean in the context of what theyre
reading (3d, 3a).
The wall is a great engagement strategy
to encourage transfer of
knowledge/skills, not just ending within
the context of the ELA block (3b big
ideas)

Strengths:
All of standard 2!! You have SO much going on in your classroom because
you are responding to the needs of your students (many different behavior
systems, reward programs, formats, strategies)! You should be so proud of
the work you are doing to manage this group! You are really doing such a
nice job others may have been defeated at this point, but your students
are very lucky to have a teacher who perseveres so!
Variety of instructional strategies Similar to above, you know the needs of
your students, and you plan different strategies and methods to engage
them, based on those needs! Because of this, student engagement is up!
You did a great job keeping the pace and transitioning between
activities/situations that arose.
Areas to improve:
Clarity theres a lot going on, and I completely get that, but make sure you
are clear with them and finish your thoughts!
Clear prompts for self and peer assessment