LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

Micaela Powers
Ms. Lauren and Ms. Ebony – YCP purple class
Pre – 4 classroom
Implemented: 10/31/17
(Include the title of each of the following sections in your written plan.)

A. TITLE/TYPE OF LESSON:
Hello My Name Is…
Read aloud with vocabulary lesson

B. CONTEXT OF LESSON
Every morning our class gathers at circle time and we sing “Hickity, pickity, bumble bee,
won’t you say your name for me”. Everyone says hello to the person who was just introduced.
The students love it and it gives them the opportunity appreciate everyone in the classroom
and acknowledge them. It also is a time for them to express how they are feeling for the day.
In this lesson I will be reading the book Hello, My Name is Ruby during this morning circle
time to them. The book is about a bird who finds different animals to say hello to, learn more
about, and become friends with. The lesson will consist of teaching vocabulary from the book
which revolves around saying hello and introducing yourself. I believe this is appropriate for
my students because at this age they are learning social skills that will follow them through
their life and I see them sometimes have trouble going up to other students and asking to play.
This lesson is also very developmentally appropriate for my students because at the YCP the
main ideals are centered around social development. This will give my students the ability to
learn more words that they can use in these social situations while simultaneously increasing
their vocabulary.

C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand – what are the broad Know – what are the facts, rules, Do – what are the specific thinking
generalizations the students should specific data the students will gain behaviors students will be able to do
begin to develop? (These are through this lesson? (These “knows” through this lesson? (These will also
typically difficult to assess in one must be assessed in your lesson.) be assessed in your lesson.)
lesson.)
My students will begin to My students will know the Students will “introduce”
understand that using their words appropriate language to use when themselves to other friends in our
is the best way to talk to others going up to other students or class to show they know what the
and begin conversations and solve children they do not know but word means and they will use our
their problems. would like to play with or people “hello my name is” introduction
they are introduced to. when asked during assessment.

D. ASSESSING LEARNING
During the read aloud I will teach our vocabulary words from the book (see procedure). Immediately
after the read aloud I will ask my students what “introduce” means and after their responses I will ask
them how we learned to introduce ourselves and look for the responses “hello my name is” and
waving their hand to their because that is what we talked about during our read aloud. I will then ask
each student to find a friend to introduce themselves to or to introduce themselves to me, which ever
they are comfortable doing. And watch each student to see if they were able to hear me say
“introduce” and then initiate a hello with their other peer and wave their hand because we will talk
about how when introducing yourself waving hello is friendly. Because the YCP does not believe
 formal assessment is developmentally appropriate at this age I will use the observation skills I have
gained from this placement to observe each child and see if they were able to comprehend the
vocabulary. I will also be following up this lesson with an activity during the classroom exploration
time where each student will have the opportunity to paint a waving hand. I will be using this as
another assessment opportunity and when they are finished I will have a picture of Ruby from the
book printed out and ask them to introduce themselves with their words and their hands to Ruby. This
will give me the opportunity to see each child understanding the vocabulary individually and a little
while after the lesson to make sure it stuck with them.

E. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING

Virginia Foundation Blocks
1). Oral Language:
 The child will develop an understanding of word meanings through the use of
appropriate and expanding vocabulary.
 Use appropriate and expanding language for a variety of purposes, e.g., ask questions,
express needs, get information.
2). Vocabulary:
 Use expanding vocabulary with increasing frequency and sophistication to express
and describe feelings, needs, and ideas
 Participate in a wide variety of active sensory experiences to build vocabulary.
3). Personal and Social Development: Interaction with others
 Initiate and sustain interactions with other children
 Demonstrate verbal strategies for making a new friend.
 Demonstrate respectful and polite vocabulary

F. MATERIALS NEEDED
Hello My Name Is by Philip C. Stead
Word strip with INTRODUCE on it

G. PROCEDURE
 All the students will gather at the carpet for our daily morning circle time as per usual and I
will be ready sitting in the chair with my book.
 To begin I will read the title of the book once and the open to the first page which repeats the
title and has a picture of Ruby. I will then ask the students if they see Ruby. I want them to know
which animal she is because there are lots of different animals on every page. She is a very small
bird so this way they will see her and understand that she is introducing herself throughout the
book.
 When I turn to the first page of the reading I will read “Ruby introduced herself. ‘Hello my
name is Ruby’”. Before reading any further I will stop and say “WOW, I just read a big word
friends did anyone else see or hear a big word too?”. Here I hope my students recognize that and
say yes or even point out the big word. I will then ask my students if anyone knows what
introduce means and to raise your hand if you do. If anyone raises their hand I will ask them to
tell me, if not I will say “that’s okay, we are going to learn it today”. I will say “Introduce,
everyone say introduce” (everyone says introduce) “introduce means telling someone who you
are when you meet them for the first time. Ruby introduced herself to this bird by saying hello
my name is ruby. So this must be the first time ruby is meeting this bird since she told him who
she was. Ruby introduced herself to the bird, everyone say introduce (everyone says introduce)
introduce is telling someone who you are.” Then I will finish reading the page. On the third page
again I will read ruby saying “Hello my name is ruby.” I will stop reading and say “Ruby just
told someone who she is, ruby just introduced herself again.” On the fifth page again I will read,
“Hello, my name is Ruby”. This time I will say, “Hmmm, Ruby just told someone she just met
who she is, can anyone tell me what Ruby did?” and see if anyone understands that she
introduced herself, and that we are seeing a pattern of Ruby introducing herself. On the 9 th page
it says, “Ruby introduced herself” before I read the next page where it says “Hello my name is
Ruby” I will ask my students, “what do you think Ruby says to this animal?” and see if they
 understand that she will say “Hello my name is”. I will continue reading and on the last page, I
will read “Would you like to meet my friends” and the book is over. Here I will say, “If they are
meeting her friends for the first time they must be INTRODUCING themselves”. At this point I
will ask the students what are some ways they introduce themselves. This way I can see what
they say to see if they understood what introducing yourself means. After that I will tell them
that using words like hello, introducing yourself, asking about other people, and being polite like
Ruby was is a great way to make new friends and approach friends at preschool.
 After the read aloud, the kids will have the opportunity to paint a waving hand at the art center
during exploration time. This will help continue their thinking about saying hello and
introducing yourself and using your words using different methods. When they are finished
painting, I am going to ask them to use their hand and introduce themselves to Ruby, the bird
from the story, and try to be her friend. This will give me the opportunity to see the students can
use what we learned during the read aloud in a real situation.

H. DIFFERENTIATION
I understand that not all of my students will catch onto the vocabulary right away while others will
not. Because of this I have picked a book with a pattern so that students will keep seeing the
vocabulary and they will keep seeing it being used in the context I am asking them to understand it.
This way my students who will understand the vocab right away will continue to practice but my
students who need more time and more examples to understand will have it. I also understand that not
all my students may want to “introduce” themselves to others students, so I am letting them introduce
themselves to myself or anyone teacher or practicum student in the room (there will be 5). If I notice
any students struggling to understand I will use the creative activity during a later part of the day to
further instruct them before I ask them to introduce themselves to the Ruby I will have printed out.

I. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Because I am stopping so much in this read aloud to explain the vocabulary, something that could go
wrong is the students get bored or confused with the book and stop interacting with me because they
lack interest. If this were to happen I would try to facilitate interaction as well as stop and review what
is happening in the book. I also know how much my students love animals so something I could do to
keep their interest could be having them point out the different animals they see. Another thing that
could happen is that my students do not want to interact with me at all, they are not repeating
“introduce” or the definition, they are not answering my questions through out the book. If this were to
happen, I would continue with my read aloud, answering my own questions or stop asking questions.
At the end I would reiterate the word and the definition and throughout the day and during our
painting activity later and continue to ask them questions to see if the information stuck in their brain.
Another thing that could possibly go wrong is that the kids are too rowdy and not able to stay sitting at
circle time because it’s Halloween. In this case, I would encourage them to stay at the circle. If they
really can’t stay sitting, I could do my lesson during exploration time at the table where the kids are
painting their hands.
Lesson Implementation Reflection
I. How did your actual teaching of the lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes and explain why
you made them.
My students do not have much experience having their read alouds center around literacy lessons. All of
their read alouds are for pleasure, to calm them down, or teach them how to handle situations such as
losing their temper or sharing. So I when I was doing my lesson I noticed almost right away the students
were more interested in finding the little bird on each page as opposed to telling me what Ruby was doing
and how she was doing it. Some students were interested, but I wanted more students to take away from
the lesson. So I had them find Ruby on each page, she is a very small bird, and had the students point out
the new friend she was with. I used this as a way to show this is Ruby introducing herself to her new
friend. This way they could look at the pictures and almost see what she was doing and it was still a fun
activity for them to find Ruby on every page while also getting the concept of introducing yourself and
making new friends and using your words.

II. Based on the assessment you created, what can you conclude about your impact on student learning? Did
they learn? Who learned? What did they learn? What evidence can you offer that your conclusions are
valid?
A few of my students had an idea about what introduce meant. They knew that it was when you say hello
but they didn’t know any definition or how to use it in a sentence themselves. As I was reading and letting
them find Ruby, I would show them her new animal friend and ask them, if they just met, what is Ruby
going to do with her new friend. A few students would say introduce herself, but not all of them. I got
more responses when I would say Ruby is going to introduce herself what is Ruby going to say, and most
kids would say, “hello, my name is Ruby”. However, in my later assessment I was really interested to see
if the student would remember what we had learned. I had them paint hands because we talked about
waving your hand as a way of saying hello. I had a picture of Ruby on the table that I was going to ask
each student to introduce themselves to using their words and the hand they had painted. It was really
awesome to see some kids using their hand to wave to Ruby before I had even asked them to introduce
themselves to her. When I individually asked each student who choose to come to my station to introduce
themselves to Ruby they went “Hello/Hi I’m ____”. Even though they all used different words, they
understood the concept. I saw few students talk a little more to Ruby about their hand. I think had I made
each child introduce themselves to Ruby a few would be unsure what to do to. Another thing that really
showed me that the students got something out of my lesson was the next day when another practicum
student did a read aloud and taught the students the word colorful. At the end of the day one of our
students went up to our CT with the hand they had made during my lesson, waved it and said Hi, Mrs.
Lauren, my hand is colorful. We both thought it was really rewarding to see her combine our lessons and
even use them on the playground!

III. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better or more
thorough way if you were to teach this lesson again.
A way I would incorporate more developmentally appropriate practice into this lesson would be to have
more time for the lesson and I would use it to have props with me to really show them what the word
means. Maybe a stuffed Ruby and a few other animal friends that I could have the students use to act the
book out or I could use to act the book out. I would also like to have more word strips. I would have words
they could use when they introduce themselves on it. So after I read the book when I asked them how they
introduce themselves to new friends I would have had examples for them.

IV. Based on the assessment data you collected, what would you do/teach next if you were the classroom
teacher?
If I were the classroom teacher, I would probably continue use read alouds to teach words. Next I would
teach words that they can use to solve conflicts and resolve problems. My teacher is always telling them to
use their words when they are frustrated or when they get into a conflict with another student. They also
told us as the practicum students to tell them the same. But I have seen students be in situations where they
don’t know what to say. I’m not sure the teachers have really gone over ways for them to talk through their
problems. This could be a very good opportunity for them to do a vocabulary lesson. They are not only
 building their vocab and teaching them something in the process, but they are also sticking true to their
approach by encouraging conflict resolution through words and social development.

V. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about young
children as learners?
This lesson taught me that kids may not always find what you are teaching interesting because they can get
easily distracted. Little things can catch their attention and they might be so focused on that one thing that
they can’t focus on your lesson. Like in my lesson when they became devoted to finding the little bird
Ruby on each page. From this I learned that instead of ignoring that or telling them to stop, it’s okay to
encourage them to continue doing it and as a teacher you can adapt to that situation and make your lesson
work around what they find interesting. This might not always work, but sometimes when working with
extremely young kids, it can be hard to keep their attention so if you just keep adapting to what is holding
their attention and making your lesson work around that, they will enjoy the learning.

VI. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about teaching?
Something that this lesson reinforced about teaching was how elastic you have to be as teachers and how
you have to think on your feet. Lessons are not going to always go as you have planned so it’s important to
have a back up plan and be able to modify your lesson as you go. I also think this taught me that it is okay
to modify your lesson while you are teaching. It’s hard sometimes because you work so hard to create a
lesson for your students and they don’t always work how you may have hoped. But teaching isn’t black
and white like other professions. Things can change daily depending little things like even how much sleep
your kids got the night before or if it is Halloween day and all they can think about is candy and trick or
treating. As a teacher you have to be able to think on your feet which is always something I kind of knew
but it was different when I actually had to step in and alter my lesson plan to what my students were doing
and enjoying.

VII. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about yourself?
I think planning and teaching this lesson reinforced how much I want to teach kids and how I really want
to see them learn and succeed. Planning this lesson and teaching it was so different than the last read aloud
because I had a learning objective to this lesson that focused around literacy. I saw my students actually
learning and really getting the information I was teaching and I think they could benefit from more literacy
lessons. I think it made me upset that they don’t do more lessons like this in class because they have so
much more potential to learn in developmentally appropriate ways. Part of what I love about teaching is
seeing a child learn something new and seeing how excited they get when they realize they are capable of
doing new things. So if anything, this lesson reinforced why I want to teach and I reinforced my reasoning
behind it.