Erin

Ouellette
Ann Ford, Cub Run Elementary School
Friday, February 27, 2015
LESSON PLAN OUTLINE
Introduction to Dental Health

TITLE OF LESSON Healthy Choices, Pre-K

CONTEXT OF LESSON

In this lesson, students will learn the difference between healthy and unhealthy choices. The
lesson will begin with a read aloud about visiting the dentist. Students will listen to the
story and participate in discussion throughout the reading. Once the reading portion of the
lesson is complete, students will participate in a Smart Board activity. This activity will test
students comprehension of healthy choices as well as letter and beginning sound
recognition.

OBJECTIVES

Students will:
Strengthen alphabet recognition of the letters: T, F, O, A, C, D, J, H, U, and I.
Strengthen comprehension of letter-sound knowledge and beginning sound
recognition.
Understand key ideas about healthy and unhealthy choices.
Sort healthy and unhealthy choices into separate categories.
Identify the names of common foods and dental hygiene objects.
Identify the corresponding beginning sounds of each food or object.
ASSESSING LEARNING
To assess students learning, every student will participate in a Smart Board activity. When
a student is asked to participate, he/she will come to the Smart Board and select an object.
He/she must tell the teacher what the object is called and what letter it begins with, testing
their comprehension in phonics. Then the student will sort the object into either the
Healthy or Unhealthy category, which will assess his/her understanding of healthy and
unhealthy choices.
RELATED VIRGINIAS FOUNDATION BLOCKS FOR EARLY LEARNING

Literacy
o Foundation Block 1- Oral Language. The child will develop listening and
speaking skills by communication experiences and ideas orally. Key concepts
include:
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.

Erin Ouellette
Ann Ford, Cub Run Elementary School
Friday, February 27, 2015
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.
o

Foundation Block 3- Phonological Awareness. The child will manipulate the

various unites of speech sounds in words.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)

Foundation Block 4- Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition. The child
will demonstrate basic knowledge of the alphabetic principles and understand
that the letters in written words represent the sounds in spoken words.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)

Identify words that rhyme and generate simple rhymes.

Identify words within spoken sentences.
Begin to produce consonant letter sounds in isolation.
Successfully detect beginning sounds in words.
Begin to isolate or produce syllables within multisyllable words.

Identify and name uppercase and lowercase letters in random order.

Identify the letter that represents a spoken sound.
Provide the most common sound for the majority of letters.
Begin to match uppercase and lowercase letters.
Read simple/familiar high-frequency words, including childs name.
Notice letters in familiar everyday context and ask an adult how to spell
words, names, or titles.

Health and Physical Development

o Foundation Block 4- Responsible Behaviors. The child will demonstrate the
ability to cooperate with others and follow safety rules while participating in
physical activities.
a) Demonstrate safe behaviors by participating appropriately during
physical activity, accepting feedback, and taking responsibility for
behavior when prompted.
b) Share equipment and space, and take turns with help from the
teacher.
c) Work well with others.
d) Listen to and follow simple directions.
o

Foundation Block 6- Nutrition. The child will identify healthy and unhealthy
foods, and simple practices and habits to promote health and prevent illness.
a) Indicate awareness of hunger and fullness.

Erin Ouellette
Ann Ford, Cub Run Elementary School
Friday, February 27, 2015
b) Identify foods and the food groups to which they belong, e.g., vegetables,
fruits, dairy, meats, and grains.
c) Distinguish food and beverages on a continuum from more healthy
to less healthy.
d) Demonstrate an understanding that eating a variety of fresh fruits
and vegetables with lots of different colors helps the body, grow
and be healthy.
ALLOTED TIME
30 minutes
MATERIALS NEEDED

Just Going to the Dentist by Mercer Mayer

Smart Board
Notebook program
Smart Board Pointer

PROCEDURE
Begin the lesson by discussing prior knowledge about the dentist. Have students recall
information from the dentist video watched earlier in class. Then read aloud to the students
Just Going to the Dentist by Mercer Mayer. Throughout the reading, acknowledge comments
and provide feedback.
After the read aloud is complete, turn on the Smart Board and open the Notebook program.
Then open the Healthy Choices activity and expand to full-screen view. Explain to the
students the difference between healthy and unhealthy choices. Give a few examples like Is
a cookie healthy for our teeth? How about an apple? Students should already have a basic
understanding of this concept from previous lessons. Point out which category is Healthy
and which category is Unhealthy. Then explain the beginning letter and sound of each
category title.
Invite one student at a time to come to the Smart Board. Allow the student to choose one
object that they will identify the name of. Ask the student to say the name of the object and
identify the beginning letter and sound. If the student is unsure, ask the class as a whole to
answer. Then using the Smart Board pointer have the student move the object into the
corresponding Healthy or Unhealthy category. Proceed this way until each student gets
a turn with the activity.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?

If the computer or Smart Board were to not work, you would have a worksheet sorting
activity for each student. The worksheet would contain pictures of the same objects
included on the Smart Board activity. Students would cut out each object and glue it on to
the corresponding Healthy or Unhealthy category in their workbooks. Then next to each
picture students would write the beginning letter of each word. If the students were unable

Erin Ouellette
Ann Ford, Cub Run Elementary School
Friday, February 27, 2015
to identify objects and beginning letters/sounds, you would change the lesson into a more
group oriented activity. Therefore instead of having individual students identify the object
and beginning letter/sounds, you would have the class give a collective response.

Lesson Implementation Reflection

As soon as possible after teaching your lesson, think about the experience. Use the
questions/prompts below to guide your thinking. Be thorough in your reflection and use
specific examples to support your insights.

I. How did your actual teaching of the lesson differ from your plans? Describe the
changes and explain why you made them.
The actual teaching of my lesson followed closely to the plans that I had written. The
lesson plan was composed of the read aloud and Smart Board activity. Both of these
activities went smoothly with only a few interruptions from students. I did not have to
make any changes during the read aloud. However, I made minor changes to the Smart
Board activity. During the activity not all students were able to identify the objects and
beginning letters/sounds on their own. Therefore, I would ask the class, Can some of
my friends help John? What is this food on the board? Can you tell me what letter it
starts with? Also because of the time constraint between morning activity and lunch, all
of the students except one were able to participate in the activity.

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?
The Smart Board activity was essentially the assessment for this lesson. The majority of
the students were able to identify which objects were healthy and unhealthy, which
demonstrates their understanding of the lesson. They were also able to identify the
corresponding beginning letters and sounds of each word. I would only need to ask the
question, What letter does that start with?, once to get the correct response. This was
not something I taught, but it was my objective to strengthen their comprehension of
phonics through the activity. After the lesson was over, we went to lunch and one of the
students had a piece of candy. His other classmates proceeded to tell him that it was
unhealthy for his teeth and he should not eat it. This demonstrates that the lesson
taught them that sugar is unhealthy for our teeth. Therefore students learned the
difference between healthy and unhealthy choices and how those choices relate to the
health of our teeth.

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.
I think to make the lesson more developmentally appropriate I would incorporate a
written portion on the Smart Board. Since most of the students are Early Emergent
Readers, alphabet writing is key to their literacy diet. I think it would be beneficially to
have the students writing the beginning letter of their selected object. Then the activity
would be centered on alphabet recognition, letter-sound knowledge, and writing. Also it
might be more developmentally appropriate to remove this activity off of the Smart
Board and on to paper. In addition to the skills previously mentioned, students could
strengthen fine motor skills through cutting with scissors, pasting with a glue stick, and
writing with a pencil.

Erin Ouellette
Ann Ford, Cub Run Elementary School
Friday, February 27, 2015

IV. Based on the assessment data you collected, what would you do/teach next if
you were the classroom teacher?
I did not collect physical data from this lesson; rather I collected observations and
responses of the students. If I were the classroom teacher, I would continue into a
lesson on healthy eating. Now that students have knowledge of what healthy and
unhealthy choices are it would be beneficial to have a lesson about different healthy
foods. My next lesson would be on fruits and vegetables. In this lesson I would read
books and watch videos on fruits and vegetables. I would also incorporate a healthy
cooking activity with recipe writing. This lesson would continue to work on letter-sound
knowledge and alphabet recognition/writing.

V. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had
reinforced about young children as learners?
Planning and teaching this lesson has reinforced my understanding of Emergent
Readers. For Emergent Readers, picture sorts are a great way to help strengthen letter-
sound knowledge, beginning sounds, and alphabet recognition. With this in mind I
wanted to plan a lesson that focused on these key elements. I think actually carrying out
the lesson is what really reinforced my understanding of Emergent Readers. I was able
to see and hear the students working on their phonetic understanding. They would
sounds out the words and take their time identifying the letters.

VI. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had
reinforced about teaching?
This lesson reinforced my understanding of the expectations set for teachers. You have
to be organized, responsive, and flexible. I had the lesson prepared, but I had not
actually practiced giving the lesson prior to that day. I think it would have been
beneficial if I had practiced and gotten some constructive feedback. I learned that
preplanning is key to running a smooth lesson. Furthermore, throughout the read aloud
students would interject with their ideas and comments. I had to remember to
acknowledge as many comments as I could without disrupting the flow of the lesson.
Lastly I had to be flexible when students asked questions or had difficulties with the
activity. This lesson reinforced that staying on your toes is also an important skill
teachers should possess.

VII. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had
reinforced about yourself? *** Specify: what you learned from the assignment
and what you would do differently next time.
This lesson reinforced that I am a planner. I thrive off of schedules and lesson plans
because they provide consistency and structure. I thoroughly enjoyed planning the
activity and getting a chance to wear the teacher hat for the day. This lesson also
reinforced that I like interactive activities, which is why I created the Smart Board
activity. I could have done a longer discussion after the read aloud, but I decided that the
Smart Board activity would be more fun for the students. However, I learned that I
prefer more hands-on activities that technologically centered activities. Lastly, I learned
that literacy instruction is something I want to work on. Personally I prefer to teach
math and science because those are the subjects that I excel in. I have never been a fan
of language arts and English because my classes growing up were not interactive
enough. I think this class is challenging me to think outside the box when it comes to

Erin Ouellette
Ann Ford, Cub Run Elementary School
Friday, February 27, 2015
literacy instruction. As I mentioned before I would probably take this activity off the
Smart Board and back to a paper model. This way students are able to get a more hands-
on experience and work on skills beyond literacy comprehension.