LESSON PLAN

Name: Brittany DrexlerDate: Wed., Oct. 15, 2003

Time: 8:00- 9:30 a.m.

Content Area: Reading, Writing/Language ArtsUnit Topic: Shared Reading

Today’s Lesson: Activities based on Grade Level: 1

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

LESSON RATIONALE

NYS ELA Learning Standards:

Standard #2: Language for Literary Response and Expression

Key Ideas:

  1. Listening and Reading- Listening and reading for literary response involves comprehending, interpreting, and critiquing imaginative texts in every medium, drawing on personal experiences and knowledge to understand the text, and recognizing the social, historical and cultural features of the text.
  2. Speaking and Writing- Speaking and writing for literary response involves presenting interpretations, analyses, and reactions to the content of language of a text. Speaking and writing for literary expression involves producing imaginative texts that use language and text structures that are often multilayered.

Instructional Objectives:

  1. After the teacher has read the story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the class at least three times, the students will be able to identify and discuss the sequence of events in the story with accuracy. (COMPREHENSION)
  2. Students will be able to sequence the events of the story and the days of the week, according to the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar with accuracy. (COMPREHENSION)
  3. Students will be able to demonstrate comprehension through writing and illustrating, by retelling the story in a book created individually about their eating habits with some accuracy. (SYNTHESIS)

Adaptations:

  • The story will be available on tape for those students who need additional time listening to the story.
  • Prewritten pages for each day of the week will be available to all students and for students with grapho-motor difficulties.

Materials:

  • Carle, Eric.The Very Hungry Caterpillar
  • 3x5 index cards with all the days of the week written on them
  • Pictures of the foods mentioned in the book also glued to index cards
  • Prewritten pages labeled with the days of the week for every student
  • Paper, crayons, pencils, markers
  • Chart paper

LESSON OPENING

Anticipatory Set:

Introduce the Book

  • Gather the students where they can all see the book.
  • Show the book and discuss the author, illustrator, title, front cover, back cover, etc.
  • Invite the students to predict what they think the story is about.

Say: “Does everyone remember how we use our calendar in class each morning to know what the day of the week and the date is? Who remembers what the days of the week are? (Share responses). Do you think that we do things in order everyday? Does anyone have any examples? [Examples: eat breakfast, brush teeth, etc.](Share responses). What about animals? Do they have a daily order for doing things? Has anyone ever seen a caterpillar? What different types of food do you think they eat? (Share responses). Today we are going to read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. (Show the children the book.) Let’s look at the cover page. What do you see? What do you predict this book is going to be about? Let’s read the book to find out. Later you will get to create your own book about the story.

LESSON BODY

Activities

  1. Read the book aloud to the children
  2. After reading the book, encourage the students to respond by asking questions, such as

*Were your predictions correct? Why?

*What different types of food did the caterpillar eat?

*Is this true?

3. Read the story again using pre-made food cards as props to go along with the story. (Choose star of the day).

4. Read the story aloud a third time with food cards and ask for volunteers to participate in the story telling using the props.

5. Invite students to read along. The story may need to be read another time to include all the students in the prop activity.

6. After the book has been read, explain to the children that they are going to be divided up into groups of four and given two sets of cards: one with the days of the week written on them, and the other with pictures of food on them.

7. In their groups, they are going to work cooperatively to pair up the days of the week with the correct food the caterpillar ate according to the book. The days of the week cards are to be put on top and the food cards are to be placed beneath them. (MODELING)

8. After this activity is complete, bring the groups back together by asking different groups to share how they arranged their cards.

9. Next, explain to the students that they are going to work individually to create their own book. However, mention that their book will focus on their own personal eating habits. They are going to replace themselves in the book, instead of the caterpillar.

10. Show an example already made. Demonstrate to the students how they will fill in the correct day of the week in the provided blank on each page and then the food that they want to eat in the second blank. Explain to the children that after they fill in the word sentence, they are to fill in the rest of the page with an illustration of the corresponding food. (MODELING)

11. Brainstorm on chart paper the foods they may want to include in their book.

12. Stay on the rug until all the students have had a chance to list some of their favorite foods and are sure of what they are going to write and illustrate. Ask for further questions. (Check for understanding).

13. If no further questions remain, send children to their desks. Hand out the pre-made books and let them begin writing. (GUIDED PRACTICE)

Closure:

“It is so exciting to see how well your writing and drawings are coming along. For reading/language arts time tomorrow, everyone is going to get the opportunity to share their own book they made. Sometimes we use time to help us schedule our order of events during the day and tomorrow we will also be talking some more about time while reading another book by Eric Carle. Collect the paper and crayons.

LESSON FOLLOW-UP

Give children many opportunities throughout the week to share their version of the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Let the students read it to both themselves and to others. Put out other books by the same author for them to read and view.

Evaluation:

What did I want the students to learn?

~To understand the sequence of the story and how each part contributed to the next part in the story.

~To be able to sequence the days of the week correctly.

~To be able to create a book using writing and illustrating about themselves that ran parallel to the one read to them.

~To work cooperatively in a group setting.

How will I know they learned it?

~Creation of their own story

~Correct sequencing during the card game

LESSON RESOURCES

References for student use:

Books by Eric Carle

Chart listing suggested foods

References for teacher use:

Cooper, J.D. (2003). Literacy: Helping children construct meaning. 5th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.