SPEDE 774

Unit Plan Overview

Daniella Goodman
10/13/2014
Kindergarten Unit Plan Overview: Feelings and Moods
Children with special needs are often left without critical modification to help close the
achievement gap between themselves and their peers. An important starting point for children
has to do with acclimatizing oneself to the mood of those around them a key socialization skill
in which many students with different abilities have trouble with when first embarking upon
school settings (Brinkerhoff & Keefe, 2007). According to the common core state standards for
Kindergarten, students on this level should be able to, Speak audibly and express thoughts,
feelings, and ideas clearly. (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.6, 2014). By creating a unit on
feelings and moods at the beginning of the school year, I can help provide my students the tools
to better understand themselves, their own feelings and what it takes to be a part of a classroom
community with respect and understanding of those around them. Students will be asked to share
both privately with peers, and publicly for the whole class, again, reiterating the socialization
aspect of educational work. Through a variety of literature and interactive lessons, students will
learn to analyze themselves, their peers, as well as a rich new vocabulary to better articulate
themselves. The following is a brief overview of the unit plan being developed:
Guided
Reading
Read Aloud with:
'Emotions and Feelings,
How Do You Feel
Today?: A kids book
about emotions and
feelings', by Jenny River
Discuss
vocabulary
words, establish
prior
knowledge with
students

Word
Study

Vocabulary study using

'Emotions and Feelings,
How Do You Feel
Today?: A kids book
about emotions and
feelings', by Jenny River

Reading Workshop

Students will be given

leveled books on
different feelings and
emotions to analyze for
more vocabulary terms

Writing
Workshop
Students will be
given guidelines to
write their own short
piece on how they
are feeling today

Teachers can take

dictation to help
students realize their
pieces with a
beginning, middle, and
end to their stories

Reader's
Theater/Art

Content Lesson:
Social Studies

Students will be given

time to create puppets
in order to act out their
indivdualized/group
pieces on feelings and
moods
Students will study
developmentally appropriate text
as it relates to the biography of
Martin Luther King Jr. Students
will be given prompting
questions and leveled assessment
worksheets to analyze student
learning and engagement

SPEDE 774

Daniella Goodman
References

Brinkerhoff, J. D., & Keefe, E. B. (2007). Effective literacy instruction for students with
moderate or severe disabilities. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
2014 Common Core State Standards Initiative: http://www.corestandards.org/ELALiteracy/SL/K/6/