Lesson Sketch for EDT 313 Investigation Lesson

Individuals completing this plan: ___Kayla Flaute

Lesson title: Characteristics of Farm Animals Investigation Topic: Farm Animals

2 Early Learning & Development Content Standards Indicators:

1. Cognition and General Knowledge; Science Inquiry and Application; Inquiry: “Record
observations using words, pictures, charts, graphs, etc.”

2. Cognition and General Knowledge; Life Science; Explorations of Living Things: “With
modeling and support, identify physical characteristics and simple behaviors of living things.”

Instructional objectives: list 2- 3 observable/measurable objectives for this lesson. Use precise language w/ action verbs.
The student will:
1. After participating in a nature walk, the student will be able to record observations using words,
pictures, charts, graphs, etc.

2. After participating in a nature walk and interactive activity, the student will be able to identify
physical characteristics and simple behaviors of living things with modeling and support.

Experience(s): Describe authentic (real life, hands-on not representational) materials and enticing/ creative experiences in
which children are actively engaged. Experiences should encourage experimentation, problem solving and language
development. How will the experience(s) inform you on the children’s prior knowledge and interest in the topic? How can you
use this data to inform the development of your Integrated Investigation Plan?

To “hook” the students, the teacher will hold up a handful of “animal puppets.”

As a pre-assessment, the students will participate in an interactive read-aloud. Each student will be given a
“puppet” that is mentioned in the book. When the name of their puppet is mentioned, students will hold up
the puppet for the class to see. This will assess the students’ ability to identify the names and behaviors of
animals.

During the read-aloud, a checklist will be used to determine how much students already know about certain
behaviors of animals.

Once the read-aloud is over, students will be taken on a nature walk around the farm to observe the
animals. Students will be asked probing questions such as, “how does this animal feel?” Or, “what does this
animal look like?”

Once the nature walk is over, students will be brought back to the classroom to record their observations
using pictures. Pictures will be collected as assessment data to determine if students have met the objective
for recording observations.

As a post-assessment for the students’ ability to identify physical characteristics and behaviors of animals,
students will participate in “Guess Who.” Students will be given a description of an animal and will guess
which animal is being described. During this time, a checklist will be used to determine if students have
improved their knowledge since the pre-assessment.
Assessment of student learning:
1. Data to be collected- Data will be collected on students’ abilities to record data using pictures and
the ability to identify characteristics and behaviors of animals.

2. Method used to record/aggregate data- To measure the students’ ability to record data, students will
be asked to draw pictures of the animals they observed. The pictures will be collected as assessment
data. To assess the ability of students to identify physical characteristics of animals, a pre and post-
assessment checklist will be used.

3. Interpretation of assessment data- Pictures drawn by students will grouped into “met objective” and
“did not meet objective.” This data will then be compiled into a graph. On the checklists, each
student will receive a blank square if they do not meet the objective, a “/” if they are still
developing, and a check mark if they meet the objective. The checklists will be sorted into groups
of “met objective,” “still developing,” and “did not meet objective.” This data will also be
represented on a graph.

Reflection on lesson: In one page double spaced explain why the instructional objectives, experiences and
materials were chosen. Describe how well the children learned/achieved the instructional objectives. Finally include
a description of how the experience provided data to inform the development of the investigation.

The instructional objectives were chosen for this lesson because I learned through my interactions

with students that most of them could easily identify farm animals but seemed to be unable to describe

different characteristics of farm animals. Students are also doing lots of practice with writing, as most of

them are preparing for kindergarten, so I chose to integrate writing into my lesson. I chose to use “animal

puppets” for the interactive read aloud because I thought it would hook the students into the lesson as they

anxiously waited to hear the name of the farm animal in their hand. The farm animals in the barn were also

used as an authentic material, which I believe was the most effective way for students to truly observe the

physical characteristics of farm animals. I think the students received the lesson very well; they were

especially excited to go outside to visit the farm animals. The hook activity was also successful in grasping

the attention of students. While almost all students were able to identify physical characteristics of the farm

animals by the end of the lesson, many students seemed to struggle with drawing their observations after

the nature walk. Some students were not holding their pencils properly, while others seemed to lose interest

in the activity and laughed as they said things like, “A cow has two legs!” Based on student observations

that were collected, the data showed that most students did not meet the objective for recoding

observations, so this topic will need to be revisited in the future. As for the assessment of student

knowledge on the characteristics of farm animals, the data showed that almost every single student, but
one, met the objective. I would also like to note that the assessment I originally came up with before the

lesson needed to be modified. Once I gave the pre-assessment, I realized that my post-assessment would be

too challenging and possibly cause frustration for the students. After the nature walk, I modified the

assessment to what I believed to be a more independent level for the students. Not too easy, but not too

challenging. I think these modifications were very beneficial to the lesson, as it produced much more

accurate assessment data of student knowledge. Overall, I am very pleased with the way this lesson was

received, and I would love to implement similar activities in my future classroom!