LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

A. TITLE/TYPE OF LESSON: Pancakes, Pancakes! Read Aloud Lesson

B. CONTEXT OF LESSON:
This class participates in Project Based learning and is currently learning about cooking/food, more
specifically different types of breads. They have asked questions in class such as Is a bagel a type of bread?
And this book focuses on the process of making pancakes and the ingredients that are involved. The students
in the class have shown interest in cooking through the dramatic play area where they often cook things for
one another along with read about different foods around the world. This book allows for appropriate timing of
the topic and correlation with the class interest.

C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand what are the broad Know what are the facts, rules, Do what are the specific thinking
generalizations the students should specific data the students will gain behaviors students will be able to do
begin to develop? (These are through this lesson? (These knows through this lesson? (These will also
typically difficult to assess in one must be assessed in your lesson.) be assessed in your lesson.)
lesson.)
Students will have a general Students will know some of the The students will be thinking
understanding of what is involved ingredients needed to make a about all of the work that goes into
in making the ingredients for a pancake. These include flour, an making a pancake. Also, they can
pancake (flour, eggs, milk, and egg, milk, butter, a heat source, consider how all the ingredients
butter). and a sweet topping. they see in a grocery store are
made and take lots of time to
prepare.

D. ASSESSING LEARNING:
What will your students do and say, specifically, that indicate every student has achieved your
objectives? Remember every objective must be assessed for every student!
At the beginning of the lesson, I will make sure that each student answers the question Who
has had a pancake? because each student will have an answer.
I will also take note of who answered the other questions at the beginning of the read aloud
and then ask different students the following questions to ensure that each of the students will
have the opportunity to answer or ask a question.
I will consider the students responses to determine if they answer with complete sentences.
I will observe how each student turns the pages to see if they are able to do so.

E. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (and NATIONAL STANDARDS if required)

Virginia Literacy Foundation Block 1a: Listen with increasing attention to spoken language,
conversations, and texts read aloud.

Virginia Literacy Foundation Block 1c: Make predictions about what might happen in a story.

Virginia Literacy Foundation Block 1d: Use complete sentences to ask and answer questions about
experiences or about what has been read.

Virginia Literacy Foundation Block 5f: Turn pages one at a time from the front to the back of a book.

F. MATERIALS NEEDED:
Pancakes, Pancakes! By Eric Carle
 G. PROCEDURE:
I will either invite students to read a book with me in the reading area or they will choose to do so
during morning meeting. Once we all are in the reading area, I will introduce the book to the students
and ask them Who has had a pancake before? and What do you think will happen in this book? I
will then begin to read the book and allow each of the students to take turns turning the pages. On
page 4 I will explain what the words chaff and flail mean because they are some tricky words. I will
stop on pages 6 and 7 and ask the students What do you think the next ingredient is? I will show the
students the picture when asking the questions as a way to help them guess when they see the chickens
and the cow. I will then continue to read the book until the end. At the end of the book I will ask them
Would you do all that Jack did to get a pancake for breakfast? and What do you think was the
hardest part of Jacks morning? I will then continue with any conversation the students create and use
that as an opportunity to explore the topic with the students. I will then end the read aloud.

H. DIFFERENTIATION:
This activity will appeal to auditory learners because it is a read aloud.
I will be sure to show the pictures and give time for the students to make comments on them if
they want to allow for interest with the visual learners.
Kinesthetic learners will be able to hold the stuffed animals in the area as well as point to
different things throughout the book.
I will specifically ask any of the English Language Learners that might be there questions to
ensure they have an understanding of what the book is about and answer any questions they
have.
Also, I will explain what some of the words that are more difficult mean such as chaff or flail.

I. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
The biggest thing that could go wrong is the students not being interested and leaving.
Because the stations are free choice, they are aloud to come and go, as they want. In order to
avoid this situation, I need to engage the students. If they feel a part of the read aloud and not
that I am talking at them, they will be much more interested.
Another thing that could go wrong is that I forget to ask a certain question so in order to avoid
this I will put a sticky note on the pages I plan to stop and ask questions. I also want to stay
with what the students feel interested in so if they continue to talk about one topic from the
book, I do not want to stop them in order to get to the next question so I plan to let them take
the lead on what areas we talk most about.

J. REFLECTION:
This lesson was done on 2/15/17 during the afternoon playtime. Because the class playtime is free choice the
students choose where they want to go and if they want to stay, I had at most four students with me while I was
doing the read aloud and as little as one student because they fluctuated in and out. I think it would be important to
note that one of the choices during this playtime was icing and eating cake the class made from earlier in the
morning so I anticipated going into the lesson that the interest would be limited because of the other choices. This
was the only time to do my read aloud because there are several practicum students in the classroom and we all
had to do our read alouds. As the lesson began, I had two students with me in the reading center and I kept to my
plan on asking what the students thought would happen in the book and they appropriately answered, I think it
will be about making pancakes. I did not ask my question Who has had a pancake before? because their snack
from the morning playtime was pancakes so I knew they all had eaten pancakes before so instead I asked, What
did you all think of the pancakes this morning? After reading about one sentence, one student got up and left to
go eat cake. As the book continued I allowed the student to turn the pages and I stopped on pages and asked the
specific questions I planned on and the student answered with the correct answers, which were eggs and milk.
After finishing the book I asked the one remaining student sitting with me if she would do all that Jack did to get a
pancake and what she thought was the hardest part of Jacks morning was and she responded saying yes she would
and that the mill to get the flour was the hardest part.
As soon as the student answered the question, she got up and left, but two other boys came over asking me to
read the book. I went through the same routine with the two boys as one student eagerly listened interacting with
the text and me the entire time and the other student sitting in a chair listening in the background. As we went
through the book, two other students came over about half way through the book and listened until the end of the
book. I asked the same questions at the end of the book and the one boy who listening and sat with me the whole
time was quick to answer that he would not have done all of what Jack did because he has those ingredients in his
pantry at home. The other three students were unable to answer the questions because they came by too far into the
story and also because one student was an ELL and did not speak often. The student that answered all the
questions asked me to read the book again and as we read through it, he predicted everything that was going to
happen. This student told me what all the ingredients were before they came up in the text saying things such as,
the next ingredient is milk. He showed me that he comprehended all that I read the first time and was able to
verbally communicate it back to me. At one point after finishing the book I said something about the wheat at the
mill and he quickly corrected me telling me it was actually flour.
This lesson plan was both different and the same as expected. I definitely did not expect to read the book three
times to different students, but was glad to do so when asked. That provided me with an opportunity to see
different interests and responses from a variety of students. I was able to go along with the questions I had planned
on with the exception of the beginning because they had pancakes for snack. If I were doing this lesson again, I
would have requested that my read aloud been done before the students made pancakes for snack because I think
some deeper connections could have been made. I also would have requested that it not be done while other
students are icing and eating cake. Also, I would have invited more students to join me to read because I think that
the few students with me got distracted when seeing other friends at different stations. I was able to assess all the
standards I sought out to cover for the two students that remained throughout the entire book at different times as
well as smaller, brief assessment on the other students that were present for portions of the time. Overall, I thought
the lesson went well with the time and surroundings I was working with, but there is room for improvement.