JMU Student: Dana Wolinski

Cooperating Teacher and School: Kelly Rooney, Young Childrens Program

Date and Time to be Presented: March 2nd at 1:30 PM

LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program
A. Read Aloud of Buddy and the Bunnies In: Dont Play With Your Food by Bob Shea
B. CONTEXT OF LESSON
This read aloud is appropriate and applicable in the classroom because the preschoolers are always
learning about how to build relationships and make friends. The book focuses on how to treat friends
nicely and give them respect, which is an important lesson for children to learn at an early age.
C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand friends should treat
Know we should try not to play
each other nicely and show them
with our food; when we play fairly
the same respect they want to see
and are nice to others, they will
want to be our friend

Do students will draw a picture of

themselves and a friend (or friends)
doing their favorite activity;
describe what he or she drew after
they are finished

D. ASSESSING LEARNING
Students will draw pictures of themselves with a friend (or friends) doing their favorite activity. After
they are finished drawing, they should describe the picture, indicating that they understand friendship
and how to play nicely with others.
E. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (and NATIONAL STANDARDS if required)
Virginia Personal and Social Development Foundation Block 4: Interaction with Others
a) Initiate and sustain interactions with other children.
b) Demonstrate verbal strategies for making a new friend.
e) Demonstrate respectful and polite vocabulary.
f) Begin to recognize and respond to the needs, rights, and emotions of others.
F. MATERIALS NEEDED
Buddy and the Bunnies In: Dont Play With Your Food
Paper and crayons/markers/colored pencils
(I will bring the book and the students will use drawing
materials found in the classroom)
G. PROCEDURE
Before:

Prepare the learning environment by finding an area on the carpet to read.

Introduce the book by reading the title and author. Ask students, What do you
think the book might be about? How many of you have heard you shouldnt play
with your food?

During:
Start reading the book. On page 4 ask, How do you think the bunnies feel when
he tells them he is going to eat them?

JMU Student: Dana Wolinski

Cooperating Teacher and School: Kelly Rooney, Young Childrens Program
Date and Time to be Presented: March 2nd at 1:30 PM

On page 9 ask, If he ate five cupcakes and then ate the other four that were left,
how many did he eat total?
On page 18 ask, Isnt it nice that the bunnies wanted to dress like Buddy?
On page 22 ask, What do you think they might tell him?
If they dont know remind them of the title
On page 27 ask, What do you think hes going to call the bunnies?

After:

Describe the sequence of eventsBuddy met the bunnies because he wanted to eat
them for a snack, but then they convinced him to bake cupcakes, go swimming,
and play at the carnival. Ask, Would you want to do those things with a friend?
Why did Buddy change his mind about eating the bunnies?
What lesson did we learn about how to treat our friends?
Tell them to draw a picture of himself or herself with a friend (or friends) doing
their favorite activity and then describe their picture to the group.
Clean up any paper and drawing materials left over after the activity is over.

H. DIFFERENTIATION
My classroom is a group of preschoolers, so some struggle with vocalizing their thoughts or might
not be able to read. Since I am reading aloud to them, I want them to focus on the main ideas. If they
do not know the answers to my questions, I will assist them. By giving them the option to draw a
picture with a friend rather than retelling the story, I am allowing them to use another form of
expression to show me what they got out of the lesson. This will incorporate all learning levels, and
will hopefully bring about my desired results.
I.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
While I am doing this activity, a number of things could go wrong. Some of the students may not
like the story or could become distracted. They could start to play or talk to each other instead of
listening to my story, which I would need to control by stopping and giving them a fidget toy to
play with. This might help them get their wiggles out, but still listen to my story. Since we are
focusing on friendship, there is potential that students could get hurt feelings if they dont see a
friend drawing them in their picture. If this happens I will remind them that the class is all friends
and they just chose to depict a time with another friend. I am hopeful that by staying patient and
using fun voices to read the story I can keep the students engaged and help them learn this lesson.

JMU Student: Dana Wolinski

Cooperating Teacher and School: Kelly Rooney, Young Childrens Program
Date and Time to be Presented: March 2nd at 1:30 PM

Read Aloud Reflection

Planning a read aloud gave me great experience I had never gotten before doing this
assignment. So much time and thought went into this activity, and luckily, the results paid off.
Although the read aloud could be adjusted for the future and the plan had to be changed a little
along the way, the overall experience was helpful and I learned a lot about what to do for my next
read aloud.
As I prepared my lesson plan, I thought a lot about the children I would ask to be in the
reading group and what could go wrong. I have observed the class at the YCP enough to
recognize that the children have trouble sitting still and dont always focus on what is in front of
them. This worried me going into the activity, however as I began and drew the children in with
questions and a fun book, they were interested and watched every turn of the page. I had to
redirect conversation between the two children a few times throughout my reading, however I
was extremely pleased that the conversation was always related to what I was talking about.
Sometimes when I asked them questions they would answer and continue talking while I was
trying to move on to the next page. Overall, even though this got a little frustrating toward the
end, the two students loved the topic of the book and appeared to be focused on what I was
reading and teaching.
When I began my read aloud, I asked the children what they thought the book might be
about and whether they had ever been told not to play with their food before. I got great responses
and was pleased to see that I caught their attention without too many questions or having to help
them answer what I was asking. I continued on with the beginning of the story and remembered
to stop on the pages I had marked to ask questions about. Although I might not have kept the
wording exactly the same, I stuck to my plan and asked them about how the bunnies felt, how
many cupcakes Buddy ate, what he might say to them in the end, and what he would call them on
the last page. Since I had read the book a few times before reading it to the students, I was
familiar with the sequence of events, which helped me keep track of what questions I wanted to
ask on what pages. Most of the times I asked questions I got responses from both children and
they were often different answers. I really enjoyed hearing these because often in larger groups
the children just repeat what someone else has said and there is not as much creative thinking. I
was very impressed with the timely responses and even when I had to redirect their conversations
because I wanted to continue reading, they were able to make the transition.
By the end of the story, I could tell the children were ready to move on and do the activity
I promised them at the beginning. I was worried they wouldnt want to do my activity or might
get hurt feelings if the other child didnt want to draw them as a friend in the picture, but I had no
problems at this point of the lesson. I explained the sequence of events after I finished the book
because I wanted the children to reflect back on how Buddy and the bunnies became friends. This
definitely helped reinforce the objective to understand how to treat friends and by asking them if
they would enjoy doing all the same activities with their friends, it reminded them how the book
applies to real life. Once I was done reiterating the lesson from the book, I asked them to draw a
picture of themselves with a friend or friends doing their favorite activity or something fun.
Without hesitation, they were off to drawing and it was obvious they liked connecting art with
reading. I found that going through the book before doing this helped them see what the point of
drawing the picture was. Without a good explanation I dont think the two students would have
understood why I asked them to draw what I did.
Overall, I would say my read aloud was extremely successful and I am very happy with
the way it went. It was helpful to make a lesson plan to go with the activity because it forced me
to focus on a concept I wanted the children to learn and also helped me plan for what could have

JMU Student: Dana Wolinski

Cooperating Teacher and School: Kelly Rooney, Young Childrens Program
Date and Time to be Presented: March 2nd at 1:30 PM

gone wrong. Although I only read to two children, I was concerned it might not go well or the
children wouldnt want to pay attention to me. Instead, they were focused and since I had
questions prepared, I was able to stay on track. In the future, I would change a few things about
this read aloud because I know it has a lot of potential. Most likely, I would want to read to more
students at a time to see how well it works for a larger group. Rather than drawing a picture, I
might have older students write a story about friendship or get younger kids to tell me a story
while writing down what they say. Although I asked the two children to tell me about their
pictures, I didnt get that much information out of them. Doing a writing or story telling activity
might be more fun and interesting and get the students talking more than they did while drawing a
picture. This read aloud helped me learn about the ways children like to listen to stories and apply
them to real life, but also taught me about myself as a future teacher. I learned that planning helps
me stay confident and is important to a successful lesson. I am looking forward to doing more
read alouds in the future because they are so fun and extremely helpful in teaching lessons on so
many topics!