Katie Berger Professor Silver October 6, 2021 MST 202 I’m a Frog Summary and Core Ideas Summary: The book begins with Piggie jumping into frame stating the classic frog sound of “ribbit” over and over again. Elephant asks Piggie what they are doing and Piggie exclaims that they are a frog. Elephant is confused by the idea and questions Piggie as he did not know that they are a frog. He asks questions to himself stating,” I was sure you were a pig. You look like a pig. And your name is Piggie.” Piggie explains that they were a pig and now they are a frog, they turned into one five minutes ago. Elephant is then afraid that he will become a frog, but Piggie explains that it is just pretend. Then Elephant plays along pretending to be a cow. Science Content: Elephant takes a huge lead and uses the science processing skills of observation and classifying to investigate what is up with Piggie. Science Objective: K-ESS2-2 Earth's Systems ` I’m a Frog Lesson Plan School of Education The College of New Jersey Title Animals and Their Differences; First Grade Lesson Essential Questions How do animals differ from each other? How can using your imagination help you as a scientist? Standards K-LS1-1. Learning Objective Students will be able to use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive. Assessments In terms of assessments, there will be observational checklists that I will start on each student, making sure they are grasping the topic. I will encourage students to journal in their interactive student journals about what we learn in class so they can look back on it for the future project. There will be homework assignments prior to the lesson regarding differences between mammals, reptiles, and amphibians in order to understand the book. In the end, there will be a final project where students will create a story where they include the animals' environment, diet, etc. and draw pictures alongside it. Materials The book I’m a Frog, pre-lesson homework assignment, story book paper, various art supplies, chromebook cart, observation checklist, student journals, smartboard Pre-Lesson Assignments/ Prior Knowledge Based on how they eat at home, they may believe all animals eat plants and meat, just plants, and so on. Students may believe all amphibians are actually repittles due to the fact that they do not know what amphibians are. However I plan to combat that by providing a homework assignment pre-lesson. The science lesson from the day before will cover the grounds of what each type of animal is (mammals, reptiles, etc.) and their environment whereas today’s lesson will compare and introduce diet. Lesson Beginning In order to engage the students, we will go over the previous night's homework. I will then ask them “If you could be an animal, what would you be?” and have them “popcorn” to their peers. Then I would begin the book. Instructional Plan Before we start class, I will have students journal about how the previous night's homework went and encourage them to make notes on what the key ideas of yesterday were. This can help me see if the majority of class grasp the concept and if they will have enough background information to complete the project. Next, we can start with a warm up which will include my pop-corn question idea of “What type of animal do you want to be?”. It will allow students to wake up and pay attention to the order. To transition into the book, I will ask the class about how it feels to use their imagination and relate it to how “a friend in the story we will be learning about today uses their imagination”. During the book “ I’m a frog”, I will ask the class “How does Piggie look different from a frog?” “What would Piggie need if he was a frog?”. I will teach the students about how Piggie is a mammal and a frog is an amphibian. I will also teach them about animal diets and how those differ depending on the type of animal. Using the whiteboard we will make a difference chart between Piggie and a frog displaying students' answers. During books it might be harder for kids to focus and pay attention, constant sitting may be the culprit for that. So I can ask them to jump like a frog during the parts where he says “ribbit” At the end of the book, Elephant pretends he is a cow showing that he is using his imagination too. I will show the students how to use your imagination in science by asking if those dreams could become reality. I will use that part to transition into the fact that imagination can be a group effort. The main activity will be for students to imagine a story involving an animal and through that story show its environment, diet and who they live with. The project will be differentiated by allowing students to work in groups or solo for it. Ideally, students will have various types of seating to meet different students needs and I will have arts and craft bins for each student. In the classroom for my practicum students have chromebooks, in order to incorporate technology into the science lesson I will allow them to research the exact environment, foods, and family the animals have. After the projects are done or put in a folder to be completed at quiet time, then I will ask them to do an exit slip asking them one fact about their animal and how imagination is used in science. Closure My closure would be both the project and exit slip for the day. The project would probably take more time than anticipated which is fine but the exit slip will help me understand their thinking a bit better.
