Christopher DeGonia
Valentine Bear Lesson Plan
Subject: Art Date: 01/24/03
Grade: 6th
1. Goal: Students will make Valentine Bears, and write a poem using the words on candy hearts as part of the sentence.
2. Students will use their creativity to color and cut out a bear, writing a poem on the heart of the project, and placing candied hearts to fill in their poem.
3. Materials: Bear head, four paws, and a red heart cut out with lines to create a poem on. Box of candy hearts, glue, scissors, crayons, markers, or colored pencils, and lined paper.
4. Procedure:
A. Motivation: Tell students that they will be making a bear with heart for Valentines day, and that they will write a poem to someone, using candied hearts to complete sentences in their poems.
B. Sequence of events:
1. Make a model of the bear as it is supposed to look.
2. Hand out bear head, paws, and heart handouts for students to color and cut out.
3. When students have colored and cut out head, paws and heart, they need to glue the pieces together.
4. Students will then write their poem on a piece of paper to make sure it is the one that they want to use.
5. Students will correct the poem, and transfer it on to the red heart.
6. Student will then glue candied hearts to bears in spaces that they provided in their poems.
5. Closure: After student’s glue candied hearts to poems they let dry and share their poems with classmates.
6. Assignment: No follow up activities
7. Reflection:
I. Organizing and maintaining effective environment
1. Because the activity was fun and had art in it the students appeared to be more interested in all parts of the task.
2. There was a climate of fairness and respect students, worked hard on their hearts and shared colored pencils, working together and on task.
3. Classroom procedures were set before the task had begun, I explained to the students that the procedures for the Valentine heart and then had them passed out by the paper monitor.
4. I felt by giving the students the instructions before they had all the papers to complete the task, then I could explain the directions, without some students working ahead on their projects and possibly missing any of the steps. Therefore, when students received their papers they started them and knew what to do.
5. Standards for student behaviors were set prior to engaging in the art activity and maintained during lesson.
6. During the lesson I used eye contact to have some students stop reading magazines, and talking to each other. I also used proximity control to stop two girls from talking to each other during the task.
7. I did not try to promote social development in the creation of the bear Valentine, but I did have students read each other’s Valentines if the students wanted to share them.
II. Planning and designing instruction
8. Instructional levels were at appropriate levels, I felt that the lesson was appropriate for both students that were English language learners and RSP in the classroom, their were no modifications made to the project. However, they were able to complete the task.
9. I felt sequencing the activities the way that they were, enabled students to clearly see what they were doing. By having an example of what they were doing it helped all students.
10. I did not modify the plans because the poem was a fun poem, with the use of the candies in a way it was by the quality of poems, however poems were not graded. All students did well with the coloring and cutting out of the bears.
11. The lesson fit my long-term plans, by creating a art lesson for Valentine’s day.
III. Understanding and organizing subject matter
12. I demonstrated that I knew the concept by creating a model of the heart and showing the students how to make the bear.
13. I feel that the art aspect of the project helped the students to make the matter accessible to all students.
14. I did not have to really adapt the lesson for any student, except for the poem part. I did give some examples of possible lines to use with the candies. (i.e. The green frog, with a gleam in his eye asked the fair maiden to (heart candy with the word KISS ME on it ) I feel that this allowed even the boys in the class to not feel like it was a stupid project and everyone had fun with it.
15. I felt that by having a model of the project and going over what the students were to do before they received the materials it allowed all students to be focused on the project. Then by going over a few sentences allowed them to have fun with what they were doing.
16. I was able to integrate language arts into the project, by having the students write a poem.
VI. Engaging and supporting all students in learning
17. I felt by showing the bear and sharing with the students some fun lines, demonstrating how the candies were to be used in the poem, I felt I related the lesson to the students by previous knowledge of children’s short stories.
18. The coloring and cutting didn’t require any instructional strategies, but the poem needed some extra strategies to build interest into the poem writing, which I though I did fairly well.
19. Higher order thinking skills were built into the lesson, because the student’s had to put candy hearts into their poem’s with them making sense.
20. I felt by showing a sample of the completed bear and demonstrating a few sentences, I was able to reach all students in the classroom, including English language learners and RSP students.
21. Students were able to make choices in their learning, they were allowed to choose the colors that they would use to color their bears, and the lines of their poems and the candies that they would use in their sentences.
V. Assessing student learning
22. I assessed learning by walking around and checking on students progress during the assignment, checking for understanding more so with RSP students and English language learners. I assessed learning by their completed projects.
23. Students were not involved with the assessment of the project.
24. I could use the assessment results by checking for understanding of poems, and checking their fine motor skills.