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ELEMENTARY UNIT/ LESSON PLANNING COMMENTARY

Your Name: Jason Kawana
Date:1/19/2013
Unit/Lesson Title: Reptiles!
Grade Level and Content Area: K: English Language Development
Number of Students: 28
Total Amount of Time: 25mins
1. Learning Goals/Standards: What concepts, essential questions or key skills will be your focus? What do
you want your students to know at the end of this unit/lesson? I want my students to be able to look
at animals and using the information they have learned about animals so far, classify and sort
them into categories. rom categori!ing, I want my students to be able to use a whole sentence
when classifying them with sentence guides.
". #ationale: Why is this content important for your students to learn and how does it promote social justice?
By using pictures students can connect the names of animals with the image, which can recall if they
have seen them in a movie, cartoon, real life, zoo experience. I can ask questions that ask students
where/if they have seen this animal in real life. The theme for the unit is animals so the content I am
teaching is important for the standards of the lesson.
3. Identifying and supporting language needs: What are the language demands of the unit/lesson? How do
you plan to support students in meeting their English language development needs including academic
language!? The lesson itself uses pictures, materials to feel and words as well. All of these things combined
together can help aid students with special needs and language learners. Students will sort pictures with
the names of the animal on them, which matches concepts with print. We will also be completing an
organizational chart to recall information we learned about reptiles which also connects print with
content.
$. %ccessing &rior knowledge and building u&on students' backgrounds, interests and needs: How do
your choices of instructional strategies, materials and sequence of learning tasks connect with your students"
backgrounds, interests, and needs? (he se)uence of events lends to students backgrounds because they have
worked with this format before. (hey are used to creating information guides as a class and will be
&racticing making whole sentences. (he materials that they will be feeling as &art of the lesson will hel&
them cement the knowledge because some students will be more ade&t to learning through feeling rather
than *ust seeing &ictures and hearing. Scaffolding throughout the lesson will build u& to their final
assessment of when they have to sort the animals.
+. %ccommodations: What accommodations or support will you use for all students including English
#anguage #earners and students with special educational needs, i$e$ %&'E students and students
with (E)"s!? E*plain how these features of your learning and assessment tasks will provide all
students access to the curriculum and allow them to demonstrate their learning$
The lesson itself uses pictures, materials to feel and words as well. All of these things combined together
can help aid students with special needs and language learners. Students will sort pictures with the names
of the animal on them, which matches concepts with print. We will also be completing an organizational
chart to recall information we learned about reptiles which also connects print with content.
2013-2014
,. (heory: Which theories support your unit/lesson plan? e*plain the connections!
I will be using sociocultural theory by using ZPD in order for students to work in pairs and with me. By
providing sentence guides they will be able to rely on the teacher and peers to learn how to build proper
sentences. Pair share in the lesson also lets them learn from each other and listen to other students use
full sentences.
7. Reflection: (answer the following questions after the teaching of this unit/lesson) What do you feel was
successful in your lesson and why? If you could go back and teach this learning segment again to the same
group of students, what would you do differently in relation to planning, instruction, and assessment? How
could the changes improve the learning of students with different needs and characteristics? Students had an
especially hard time in distinguishing the difference between the characteristics of birds and reptiles. I
think the lesson wasnt scaffolded as well as it could have been. If given the opportunity to teach this
lesson again I would separate the two and maybe create a similarities and differences chart so that they
students can really understand and see the differences in the two animal structures.
**COMMENTARY IS REQUIRED FOR ALL UCLA ELEMENTARY FORMAL OBSERVATIONS **
2013-2014