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LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

• Quinn Albo
• Read Aloud and Discussion
• Pre-K

TITLE OF LESSON – Read Aloud on What Would You Do with a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins
and Robin Page

CONTEXT OF LESSON
Teachers can give children examples of fluent reading through read-alouds of books that are above the
current reading level of their students. This enhances their development of comprehension, connection-
making, vocabulary, and language, and has been shown to improve literacy and academic performance
in the future. The students in this class have been discussing what animal would be best for their next
class pet, and have been talking about the suggestions of each student, deciding whether it would be a
good choice for the classroom, and why or why not. The class has also been studying caterpillars and
monarch butterflies, and had some living in the classroom, so this book will follow along with these
themes – promoting the discussion of different animals and their characteristics.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand: The student will understand that animals have different characteristics (different noses,
ears, tails, etc.) and how each of these characteristics can help animals survive.

Know: Students will learn about many specific animals and the ways that their noses, ears, tails, eyes,
feet, and mouths are used.

Do: Students will see that animals have all different abilities and physical characteristics, and will be
able to understand the jobs for these characteristics in the animals from the book. They will share their
ideas about which characteristics belong to certain animals, how animals use different physical aspects,
and how they use some of these themselves (mouths to eat, eyes to see, etc.).

COLLECTION OF ASSESSMENT DATA

Students will answer questions during and after the reading relating to each of the physical
characteristics. I will ask them to make predictions during the book, and then assess their knowledge
after we read it. For example, “What are some things an animal's feet can do?” They will also look at
images of animals from the book and answer the questions: “Do you remember which animal this is?
What is it called?” and “What are some other things this animal's (nose, ears, tail, eyes, feet, and
mouth) can do?”

I will have a data collection sheet, where I will make notes after the read-aloud on what types of things
the children commented, and how each child participated. I will discuss their answers to these
questions in my reflection.

RELATED VIRGINIA FOUNDATION BLOCKS OF EARLY LEARNING

1. Oral Language: Children gain language and vocabulary skills by having multiple and
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frequent opportunities to talk, as well as listen to, adults and peers.

a) Listen with increasing attention to spoken language, conversations, and texts read
aloud.
b) Correctly identify characters, objects, and actions in a text with or without pictures
and begin to comment about each.
c)Make predictions about what might happen in a story.
d) Use complete sentences to ask and answer questions about experiences or about what
has been read.
e) Use appropriate and expanding language for a variety of purposes, e.g., ask questions,
express needs, get information.
f) Engage in turn taking exchanges and rules of polite conversation with adults and
peers, understanding that conversation is interactive.
g) Listen attentively to stories in a whole class setting.
h) Follow simple one- and two-step oral directions.
2. Vocabulary: The more children know about the world around them, the easier it is for them
to express new information, ideas, and vocabulary to communicate this knowledge. Helping
children to relate experiences to new ideas and concepts also assists in the development of
vocabulary and related skills
a) Use size, shape, color, and spatial words to describe people, places, and things.
b) Listen with increasing understanding to conversations and directions.
3. Scientific Investigation, Reasoning, and Logic: Young children have been observing the
world around them since birth. This block will help children develop language to describe
their observations.
a) Use the five senses to explore and investigate the natural world.
b) Ask questions about the natural world related to observations.
c) Make predictions about what will happen next based on previous experiences.
4. Life processes:
a) Describe what living things need to live and grow (food, water, and air).
b) Identify basic structures for plants and animals (plants- roots, stems, leaves; animals-
eyes, mouth, ears, etc.).

MATERIALS NEEDED
- What Would You Do with a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page
- Prepared questions for children to answer verbally in discussion
- Images of multiple illustrated animals copied from the book
- Images of different aspects of the animals copied from the book (tails, ears, mouth, nose,
eyes).
- A data collection sheet that I will prepare beforehand

PROCEDURE
PREPARATION OF THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
I will have all of the necessary materials with me. I will have my questions prepared on a sheet
of paper for myself, and will have all of the images and illustrations along with this so that we
can have the discussion and activity immediately following the read-aloud.

INTRODUCTION AND ORGANIZATION

Before choice time, the teacher will explain the choices for the day as usual, and tell the
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students that one of their choices is to read a book with me. When they begin I will gather
several children who are interested in my read-aloud.
I will begin by introducing the book to the children, stating the title and the author, and saying
we will do a short activity after the book.

Read the first page: “What do you do with a nose like this?” Ask children what animals they
think those noses belong to, and make mental note of their answers. Flip to the next page and
read it, asking the children what they use to dig after the line about platypus's digging in the
mud with their noses is read.

Next page: ask children what animals they think ears might belong to. Then ask what they think
ears can do.

Next page: ask them if they can name the animals on the page before I read the descriptions.
Ask them if they have ever petted a rabbit's fur, or heard a cricket chirping.

Next page: ask them what animals these tails might belong to. Go on to the next page, read the
descriptions, explaining what the words pesky and nasty mean.

Page that reads: “What do you do with eyes like these?” Ask the children what they use their
eyes for.

On the next page that describes animals' eyes: skip the part about the horned lizard squirting
blood out of his eyes, this might scare certain children.

“What do you do with feet like these?” Read the next page of descriptions, stopping to ask
children if they feed themselves with their feet after reading the description of the chimpanzee
feeding itself with its feet. Then, stopping again after the description of the gecko's sticky feet:
“can you think of any other things that are sticky?”

“What do you do with a mouth like this?” Ask students what they use their mouth for, and if
they think animals use their mouths for the same reasons (eating, talking, etc.). Read the next
page of descriptions on animal mouths, stopping to define the word capture for the children.

Finish the book. Tell children that we are going to do a fun activity that involves the animals we
learned about in the book.

IMPLEMENTATION
1. Begin with: “I have these pictures of animals from the book we can talk about!” I will show
a picture of the elephant and ask what else the students think it can do with it's trunk.
2. Then, I will show the picture of the rabbit, asking what it can do with it's nose and ears.
3. Next, the whale, asking what else it might be able to do with his tail.
4. Show the picture of the skunk and ask students if they remember what it can do with its tail.
5. Show the picture of the eagle, and ask children what else they think it can do with its eyes.
6. Then, a picture of the snake, asking what children think it does with its mouth.
7. End with a picture of a monarch butterfly (which they have just been studying). Ask the
children where they think the butterflies eyes, ears, and nose are. Then, ask them what they
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think the butterfly uses each of these for.

CLOSURE
I will close by asking the children if they liked the activity, and if they like learning about animals.
Then, I will talk about how we can use this information when we think about what pets would work in
the classroom. I will thank them for their participation in the reading and the activity, telling them it
was so interesting to hear all of their ideas about the animals.

CLEAN-UP
There will not be much clean up in this activity, I will just need to get all my materials in order to bring
them back with me and make sure the space is organized.

DIFFERENTIATION
Though there are no English Language Learners in the four-year-old class, the children are still of
different learning levels and needs. I will make sure to define and describe the less common words
pesky, nasty, leap, and capture using the context for some of the children whose vocabulary is not as
developed. The questions I will ask are open-ended, and because of this will allow all of the children to
participate and share their ideas, regardless of their cognitive development.