The Ladybug and The Cricket Lesson Plan

Mike Labagh

Lesson Plan

The Ladybug and the Cricket

Subject:

Fountas and Pinnell Reading Series

Topic:

Story Elements

Objectives:

·         Given a text, the students will complete a picture walk and make oral predictions about what may happen in the text or what the text is mainly about.

·         Given the text, the students will complete a read aloud of the text in small groups.

·         Given examples, students will be able to know and identify the five W’s (who, what, where, when, why, and how), also known as story elements

·         Given a text, the students will know and be able to read it while participating in a running record assessment.

Methods:

·         Direct Instruction – Small Group

·         Modeling

·         Guided Practice

·         Application

·         Assessment

Materials:

·         Fountas and Pinnell – The Ladybug and the Cricket – fiction – Book 100 – Level J

·         Stuffed cricket and ladybug

·         Ladybug life cycle magnets

·         Plastic crickets and plastic ladybugs

·         Ladybug in a jar

·         Printables

·         Fountas and Pinnell Word Bags and Journals

·         Pens and Pencils

Motivation:

Teacher will say, “Today we will learn about story elements. These are the five W’s. The who, what, where, when, why, and how. If you use your hand, the five W’s will match up to each finger. If you give thumbs up on the other hand, you will get the how of a story. We are learning about story elements because we need each of these to help make a story a good one. If we did not have any people or characters, the story will not be any good. If we do not know where the story took place, or if the story has no setting, it will not be good either. We will learn about the 5 W’s as we read The Ladybug and the Cricket. We will find the story elements from this story before we do an independent activity. First, let’s look at our fun facts page about Ladybugs and Crickets, and let’s compare the fun facts to the one another as we look at a real ladybug in a jar and the stuffed and plastic insects on the front table. And did you know that ladybugs aren’t just female?”

Activities:

First the students will look at the real lady bug, and what it eats, and look at the fake stuffed animals, including the cricket that makes music. When you rub the back legs together, it makes the some sound as a real cricket. The students will have to tell me if it is male or female.

·         Given a text, the students will complete a picture walk and make oral predictions about what may happen in the text or what the text is mainly about.

·         Given the text, the students will complete a read aloud of the text in small groups.

·         Given examples, students will be able to know and identify the five W’s (who, what, where, when, why, and how), also known as story elements.

·         Small group activity using graphic organizer to list the five W’s in the story we read.

·         Given a text, the students will know and be able to read it while participating in a running record assessment.

Practice Activity:

After the students complete their reading of the story, the teacher and the students will complete a graphic organizer from the story. We will be answering the five W’s of a story, which includes the problem and the solution of a story. The questions the students will be answering on their graphic organizer are:

Who or what was in the story:

What happened in the beginning of the story – the problem:

Why were the characters upset:

How did the characters attempt to solve the problem:

What happened in the end of the story – the solution:

When did this story take place? When did they fix their problem?:

Where did this story take place (setting):

Independent Activity:

The students will complete either, To The Rescue, or The Closet Creature. They will read the short passage and answer the comprehension questions that follow. Some of the comprehension questions require predicting and the students cannot get this wrong as long as they answer the question and justify their response. They are not being assessed on this skill, however, they are giving opinions of what they read, and their opinions are important because it helps the teacher gauge whether or not the story was worthwhile, challenging enough, too easy, or not interesting. The students will complete this assignment and then reconvene as a small group pending on the assignment that they choose. As a group, we will discuss the answers together and the teacher will provide immediate feedback.

 

Evaluation:

·         Participation

·         Completed extension exercises

·         Completed 5 W’s exercise

Closure:

The teacher will ask the students what the purpose of today’s lesson was. The teacher will guide the students if needed. Although the students may think it was to learn about Crickets and Ladybugs, which they did, the purpose was to learn about story elements. The teacher will ask the students if they remember what the story elements are and if they can give examples of story elements from a movie that they have seen recently. The teacher will remind the students that story elements are in every story that they read and the teacher will repeat the story elements again and use his/her hand to model them so the students have a visual of how to remember them.

Assessment:

Assessments are on-going. The students will have to answer the 5 W’s in district required text examples in Reading and on the CMT’s. The students will also have to identify the 5 W’s on future texts in Fountas and Pinnell as well.