CEP 452 Lesson Plan

Section 1: The Plan

Lesson Overview
Title: Big Green Monster Teaches Phonics
Author: Amanda Wenzel adapted from http://readwritethink.org
Subject: Language Arts
Grade Level: K/1
Duration: 2-3 days, 45 minute sessions
Unit Description: In this lesson, Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley tells a tale about a scary,
multicolored monster. This is used to help students build their reading fluency and word recognition skills. In
this lesson, students chorally read the story and then point out familiar color words or sight words that appear
in the story. After finishing the story, students are introduced to four different literacy center activities that
include participating in a read along, building word families with story words, playing a memory game with
color words from the story, and retelling story events using sentence strips. Students create their own artwork
of the big green monster and use that artwork to help them write a story. Students use both self- and peerediting to improve their writing. Completed stories can be published in a class book and displayed in the
classroom library.
Lesson Goals:

Students will increase oral reading fluency by reading a selected story multiple times throughout lesson
during different reading activities
Students will recognize and be able to read sight vocabulary words as well as high-frequency
vocabulary words such as colors used in the story
Students will apply phonics and editing skills by writing stories about their big green monsters, editing,
revising, and publishing them

Common Core Standards:

RL.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text
RL.K.4 Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text
RL.K.10. Actively engage in group activities with purpose and understanding
RF.K.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
SL.1.2 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or
through other media.
L.1.5(c) Identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g., note places at home that are cozy).

Big ideas:

By reading the text aloud, students will build reading fluency and word recognition skills
Students will begin to recognize frequently used story words such as sight or color words through
decoding and word analysis
Recognize the connection between reading, writing, and storytelling in literacy development and real
life application

Barriers:
Student cannot read at grade level or has difficulty understanding the story, difficulty with comprehension of
lesson main ideas, difficulty mastering unit vocabulary, English language learner students may need further
instruction through use of translation resources or picture dictionary, difficulty with centers during
independent practice.

Method:
Anticipatory Set: 3.1 activate or supply background knowledge 3.2 highlight patterns, critical features, big
ideas, and relationships, 4.1 vary methods for response and navigation, 7.2 optimize relevance, value, and
authenticity
Post and read the poem, The Monsters by Emma Hjeltnes
Some are ugly
Some are tall,
Some are scary,
Some are small.
Some are difficult to see.
And some are in my family!
Discuss with class:

Do you think monsters are real?

Do you have any monster friends?

Where do you find monsters?

Do you have any living at your house?

What do they look like?*

Use this activity to begin an introductory discussion about the lesson topic using *descriptive sight words and
colors
Introduce and Model New Knowledge:1.1 Offer ways of customizing the display of information, 2.1 clarify
vocabulary and symbols, 2.4 Promote understanding across languages, 2.5 illustrate through multiple media,

3.1 Activate or supply background knowledge, 3.2 highlight patterns, critical features, big ideas, and
relationships, 3.3 guide information processing, visualization, and manipulation
Display the text from Go Away, Big Green Monster! on chart paper and introduce the story to the students.
Use colored markers or crayons to write the text from the book onto the chart paper to match the color words
found in the story. Read the story aloud with students. Then have students reread the story several times
using other read-aloud formats such as boy-girl, left side right side, or popcorn reading. Reading the story
multiple times in alternative formats builds fluency, adds interest, and speeds word recognition.
Next, point out the colored words in the story and ask the students if they recognize the color name from the
print color or can relate some of the sight words used in this story to the poem we began class with.
Review the sight words and point out the known words in the story, connecting them to words already
discussed before in previous classes and in the anticipatory set. Explain literacy center activities to follow.
Guided Practice: 1.1 offer ways of customizing the display of information, 2.1 clarify vocabulary and symbols,
2.4 promote understanding across languages, 2.5 illustrate through multiple media, 3.2 highlight patterns,
critical features, big ideas, and relationships, 3.3 guide information processing, visualization, and
manipulation, 4.1 vary the methods for response and navigation, 5.1 use multiple media for communication,
5.3 build fluencies with graduated levels of support for practice and performance, 6.2 support planning and
strategy development, 6.4 Enhance capacity for monitoring progress, 7.2 optimize relevance, value, and
authenticity, 8.2 vary demands and resources to optimize challenge, 8.3 foster collaboration and
communication, 9.1 promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation
While the teacher meets with one group of students for guided reading, other groups rotate among various
literacy centers set up around the classroom. Centers can be created by simply setting out literacy activities on
a table or they can be separated into specifically designed areas of the classroom. Teachers may want to
assign particular students to certain centers based on needs or strengths. Ideally, no more than four students
in this age group should work together in one literacy center. To ensure that students work cooperatively in
the centers, teachers can provide a literacy center checklist for students to complete.
The first center will be the computer center where pairs of students listen to the audio for the online version
of Go Away, Big Green Monster! and read along with the text online to practice fluency and words
recognition skills.
The second center will be a memory card game center where students will work in groups of three or four.
Each student will need to copy the color words from the story onto index cards to use for a memory game. To
play the game, students combine the individually made sets of color cards into one deck. The deck is then laid
out, face down on the floor. Students take turns turning over pairs of cards to make a match of two color
words, reading each color word aloud as cards are turned over.
At the third center, called word families, students will choose words from the story Go Away, Big Green
Monster! and The Monsters poem to generate word family lists. Direct students to begin their word family
lists by selecting words from the story or poem that they might already know. Have them drop the beginning
letter (onset) and create a list of new words by substituting different beginning letters to the word ending
(rime).

At the fourth and final center, students work cooperatively in pairs to arrange sentence strips with lines of text
from the story in the correct order. Include the chart paper with the text of the story in this center for student
reference. This activity encourages rereading of the story in an alternative format to build word recognition,
oral reading fluency, and understanding of story sequencing. This center provides opportunity for selfassessment as the pairs of students can compare their sequencing of the strips with one another and to the
actual story.
Independent Practice: 1.3 Offer alternatives for visual information, 2.5 Illustrate through multiple media,
3.4 Maximize transfer and generalization,5.1 Use multiple media for communication, 7.3 Minimize threats and
distractions, 9.3 Develop self-assessment and reflection
Provide multiple media and formats that offer flexible opportunities for demonstrating skill, offer choices and
content and tools providing adjustable levels of challenge.
Read the story again with the students and invite each one to imagine the big green monster and draw a
picture of what it might look like to them. Encourage students to use common descriptive sight words as we
just reviewed in centers. Make sure that students match the color words in the story to the body parts of the
monster that they draw (ex. Yellow eyes).
Have students imagine their own big green monsters. What do their monsters do? How do their monsters act?
Students can use their illustrations to visualize what their monsters look like and describe this in the next
activity.
Give students the opportunity to share their big green monster ideas either with a partner, a small group, or
with the entire class. This sharing session enhances oral language skills and solidifies lesson content objectives
and goals. Invite students to begin writing stories about their big green monsters, including details from what
they imagined and just discussed with the class.
After students write the first draft of their stories, direct them to reread their stories and self-edit one time
followed by one peer-edit. For example, direct students to reread their own stories, looking for a period at the
end of each sentence. Then direct students to read the story of a peer, and edit for one particular writing
convention. For example, direct children to peer-edit for descriptive word choice. Continue to circulate among
students to teach and reteach punctuation and grammar skills as well as lesson content.

Wrap Up:
After finishing the concluding activity, have students complete a gallery walk and walk around the classroom
to view each others monster artwork and stories. Each student will be able to display their work on their desk
as well as see what other students came up with or decided to write about during lesson activities.

Assessment:
8.1 heighten salience of goals and objectives, 9.1 promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation,
9.3 develop self-assessment and reflection through presentation

Throughout the lesson, observe and encourage students work, ask open ended questions while monitoring
students work, evaluate individual work vs partner work, provide support, motivate students with their
successes, ask questions about the topic to evaluate the accuracy of answers.
Evaluating will be completed during centers at the teacher led workshop for reading as well as during the
writing portion to conclude the lesson. Students will be evaluated on reading fluency, sight word recognition,
color word recognition, phonemic segmentation, self-editing skills, and peer editing skills during the writing
portion of the lesson.

Materials:

The Monsters poem by Emma Hjeltnes

Go Away, Big Green Monster! By Ed Emberley (also available in online text
http://edamonth.homestead.com/readbiggreen.html)
Chart Paper
Colored markers or crayons
Index cards
White construction paper
Sentence strips
Computers with internet access