LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

Alice Tsai
READ 366
Pre-K Class
Read Aloud Lesson
I. TITLE OF LESSON Read Aloud on Round is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Thong
II. CONTEXT OF LESSON
By reading aloud to the preschoolers, the students are able to understand the vocabulary of the book with
picture context. It helps reinforce the vocabulary for different shapes, as well as learn new vocabulary of
different cultural objects. The students have just finished learning about shapes in the past week, thus this is
good review and strengthening of those concepts.
III. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand: The students will understand what shape different objects are.
Know: Students will learn new objects and the shape characteristics of those objects.
Do: Students will elaborate on other objects that they know are certain shapes and recognize the
characteristics that are similar in each object for each shape.
IV. COLLECTION OF ASSESSMENT DATA
Children will answer the question: What are some objects you have at home that are round? Square?
Rectangular?
They will respond verbally.
Children will also answer the questions posed during the reading, verbally and mentally to themselves.
V. RELATED FOUNDATION BLOCKS (Preschool)
Literacy
- Oral Language
o a) Listen with increasing attention to spoken language, conversations, and texts read aloud.
o b) Correctly identify characters, objects, and actions in a text with or without pictures and
begin to comment about each.
o g) Listen attentively to stories in a whole class setting.
- Vocabulary
o a) Use size, shape, color, and spatial words to describe people, places, and things.
o b) Listen with increasing understanding to conversations and directions.
- Phonological Awareness
o b) Identify words within spoken sentences.
Mathematics
- Measurement
o a) Recognize attributes of lengths by using the terms long or shorter when comparing two
objects.
- Geometry
o a) Match and sort shapes (circle, triangle, rectangle, and square).
o b) Describe how shapes are similar and different.
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o c) Recognize and name shapes (circle, triangle, rectangle, and square).

Patterns and Relationships
o a) Sort and classify objects according to one or two attributes (color, size, shape, and texture).

VI. MATERIALS NEEDED

Round is a Mooncake: A book of Shapes by Roseanne Thong
VII. PROCEDURE
A. PREPARATION OF THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
I will have the read the book and prepared where I will be stopping and making comments or questions to the
students. The students seated on the rug, ready for my practicum teacher to transition the students to focus on
me and what I will be doing.
B. INTRODUCTION AND ORGANIZATION
My CT had started off the day with using the shape song to help students review their shapes. Each student
had a different cut out shape to match up with the shape sung during the song. Then during centers, I worked
with the students on a shape worksheet that helped them recognize and sort the shapes into the identical
shape. My reading of the book and questions asked during it will be good additional reinforcement. The
students seated on the rug, ready for my practicum teacher to transition the students to focus on this read
aloud lesson. I will read the title and author of the book and begin discussion after.
Ask after title: Which one of you has guess as to what shape a mooncake is? Which item on the cover
do you think is the mooncake?
C. IMPLEMENTATION
Begin discussion after opening the book:
After page starting with Round is a mooncake: So which shape do you all think they are talking
about now?
After page starting with Round are cups of jasmine tea: What other round things do you see on this
page?
After page starting with Square are tofu and radish cakes: What other shape do you see on this
page?
After page starting with Square is the box that pizza comes in: Does your pizza come in square
boxes? What shape is your pizza?
After page starting with Square is a window with a view: What other square things can you name?
What square things are in this room?
After page starting with Rectangles are sacks of rice: Can you guys guess which picture is an
abacus? What helps you figure out which is the abacus?
After page starting with Rectangles are books for fun: What other rectangles can you all name?
D. CLOSURE
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At the end of the book: Which shape did you guys learn about that is not in this book? What objects do
you have at home and what shape is it?
Additional question for those of higher level: What do you have at home that you think your classmates
do not have?
E. CLEAN-UP
I will need to make sure that the class is still seated on the rug and ready to transition back to my CT
for their next activity. I will be putting the book away with my own things so that it is out of the way.
VIII. DIFFERENTIATION
For differentiation, I will be using more cultural words that most of the children do not know. By asking
about these words, the children will have to use contextual clues to figure out which object the word is in the
pictures on that page. This is for the more advanced students who are able to make an educated guess about
which the object could be. For the students that are having trouble, the repetition of the shape characteristics
and pausing at each page to determine what picture matches the word from the text helps them a lot with
contextual clues (aka the shape the object is).
IX. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Opening of the Lesson:
Some students may not want to sit quietly and listen to the story because they are too hyper or too tired.
Especially with the time of day, the students tend to be moody and easily irritable due to exhaustion. I can
keep them engaged in an easy going environment as the read aloud is a low stress activity. By making the
environment one that those who are tired can sit back and simply process the story if they do not feel up to
answering the questions and those who are still very active can verbally answer questions. I could also forget
the book and there is really nothing I can do about it if it already happened. However to prevent that, I can
make sure to put my book in my bag beforehand so I do not forget.
Lesson:
I can forget what one of the questions I wanted to ask on a certain page but have already stopped on that
page. In order to prevent that, I made all of the questions follow a similar format so that I can default to that
if I need to. The students might also not cooperate and answer my questions appropriately. In that case, I
know which children are more likely to answer the question and can attempt to call on the children hoping
that they are just shy. However, if they are simply uncooperative, I will try to give them examples or make
obvious errors and make it fun for them to guess objects or correct me.
Closing of the Lesson:
The students might still have trouble identifying the shapes of objects or forget the name of objects. I will
make sure to emphasize what shape each object is so that they can see the similarities between objects, as
well as repeat the vocabulary multiple times so they become more familiar with what characteristics are
associated with that term.
Behavior:
During the lesson, I will be watching the children on their behavior while reading. I can reinforce good
behavior by saying I like how ________ is listening and sitting properly. However, if a child throws a temper
tantrum or cries and is not placated with moving their star, the most I can do at the moment would be to send
them to their mats or to the aide for help as it would be consistent with my CTs attitude towards the
students, regardless of if my classroom will be like that in the future.
Note: Prior to the lesson, my CT is going to remind students that I can reward them with stickers for good
behavior and move their star for bad behavior.
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X. REFLECTION
This work reflects the course content as it is a multicultural book that is above reading level of the students.
As they are preliterate readers, repetition of key words such as round, square, and rectangle helps them
recognize hearing the words and understanding the characteristics for the different shapes. The images
support and enhance the text, especially as I used it to help students understand the shape concepts further.
There is rhyming in the book, which helps the children listen and follow the story, as well as partially predict
what the book would say next. The book also contains informational text that uses strong vocabulary about
the topic and is understandable by the children, thus being a book that will allow the children to further their
knowledge while still being understandable. Therefore, this lesson is reflective of course content and is
developmentally appropriate for the grade level I am in for practicum.
In order to prepare for this lesson, I first found a book that worked into my CTs theme for the week. I then
read through the book once to time how long it took to go through the book. This is also important to know
as this allows me flexibility in my timing as the amount of time I would have to do this lesson is
unpredictable. If I have less time than my lesson plan allows, I can cut out questions because I at least know
how long simply reading through the lesson would take. Then I went through it again and marked the pages
where I would be pausing to ask questions to the students with post-its with the question on it. I read through
the book again, estimating additional gaps for student responses. I would likely do something similar next
time as I think it worked out pretty well because I was prepared. One of the things I think I would do
differently is to practice a few more times to help get used to reading at a consistent speed. I noticed during
my read aloud that occasionally I would speed up or slow down while reading.
The students were really engaged in the book and that was surprising to me as usually by that time of day,
the students are about to fall asleep. Personally, I think they just had a really good day but having good
interaction with them during the read aloud was important as well as they were paying attention to the book
and not being distracted. There were enough questions that I could call on most of the children to answer
once and most of the ones that were not called on had raised their hands to answer at one point. I assessed
my students progress by analyzing how quick and accurate their responses were. There were some students
who raised their hand first before having deciding on an answer and by assessing how fast they can answer
after being called on, as well as the preciseness of the answer. I also think that as the students vocalize their
answers, they are affirmed by their peers as well as helped if they need help, thus aiding their learning at the
level they are at. I could also see some of the students learning from their peers as their faces showed
comprehension after hearing an object their classmate said that they did not think of. Thus, I feel like this
book and read aloud activity worked well with the level of learning that my class was at and impacted them
in a positive manner.
For future lessons, I think I would like to have a follow up lesson that would go with the read aloud. By
doing a hands on lesson, it would help reinforce the shapes and lessons better. One activity I have thought of
is where they have to sort different objects based on what shape it is, as it kind of continues the simple shape
sorting activity into a real life examples and objects. Another activity could be having the children go around
the classroom to look for objects in that shape as sort of a scavenger hunt type of activity. This makes the
children use their eyes and minds to find objects that fit that shape category. I would use many of the same
questions I asked during the read aloud as I think those questions were engaging and on level for the
children. Thus, all in all, I would mostly just add on to the lesson and not change very much. There is also a
similar book called Red is a Dragon by the same author, thus there could be a similar parallel reading using
that book.

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