Kyle Sustich

Journal Article Lesson

O’toole, DeAnn. "5 Ways to Use Crayons - Color Classification." Scholastic Instructor May/June 2009: 54. Print.

Scenario: Planned as a lesson for a class of 15-25 students. This lesson is intended as an introduction to grouping and classification. Through classifying a set of crayons on their own, students will meet Benchmark – putting objects into groups

Title: Classifying CrayonsDate: August 26, 2009

Grade: K-1st Grade

Materials:

  • A bag of ‘extra’ or ‘old’ crayons for each student (7-10 crayons in each)
  • Blank piece of poster paper

Purpose: To introduce students to recognizing differences between different types of classification and groupings to help meet Benchmark – putting objects into groups

Objective: When given a set of crayons, TLW will group/classify a set of crayons and be able to describe the reasoning for his or her decision to classify them in such a manner.

Attention Getter: Hold up one fork and ask the students to describe it in as many ways as possible. (Four points, color, metal, etc.) Show the students that any item can be described in many ways and that they will be doing this very same thing with a set of silverware together as a class, then a set of crayons individually.

Activities:

  • Modeling: Using a set of silverware first, show the class one way to group the set of utensils. (Either by color, forks, spoons, and knives, etc.) Ask the class if there is any other way they can group the utensils. After grouping the utensils again, pass out one bag of crayons to each student.
  • Explain to the students that they will each be getting a bag of crayons and will be doing the same classification just performed by the teacher, but now on their own. Check each student for understanding and accuracy. Keep in mind that since every student has a different set of crayons, their sets may should different in the end. After classifying and grouping, bring the students together and discuss the various types of classifications they came up with on their own.

Accommodations: Students who are colorblind may need to organize their set in ways that don’t depend on the crayons’ color, such as length or dividing into groups of wrapper and non-wrapper crayons.

Assessment: Each student should successfully group their own set of crayons, maintaining their criteria for classification throughout.

Closure: When wrapping up the discussion, it is important to point out to the students the many different types of grouping classifications they came up with on their own. Put the list of classifications on a poster to put up in the classroom.

Focus: I noticed that I have been lacking in keeping eye contact with my students while teaching, so I will try to improve upon that during the lesson.

Reflection:

  1. Watching the students as I taught, I noticed…
  2. The main thing I noticed while teaching my lesson was that it didn’t take as long as I expected. Once the students understood the concept of what I wanted them to do, it only took them a matter of moments to classify their crayons. I actually told them to re-classify in another way to make the lesson more in depth.
  3. If I had more time to prepare, I would have…
  4. I would have had more materials for the students to work with to make sure they understood the concept I was trying to teach them. Instead of just bringing crayons to classify, I could have also brought some silverware or markers. If I brought those other materials and my students could transfer over the classifying skill to these new materials, it would truly tell me if they learned the concept or not.
  5. For things to run more smoothly, I need to…
  6. I need to plan for my students working ahead and make sure they slow down the next time I teach this. Once I handed out the crayons to the students, all they wanted to do was mess around with the materials. In the future, I think the lesson would run much smoother if I checked for understanding every time I gave the students new directions and I held back the materials until I could see that they understood exactly what they were supposed to do.