Early Childhood Education Program

Preprimary Lesson Plan

Name: Paul Knight Date: / /2011 Age: 3-5 years old

Name of Lesson and Subject Area(s): “ Is Leonardo Scary?,” Social Science

Goal (Purpose): To experience and develop an understanding of the voting process

Objectives: To count and identify results of a vote Key Vocabulary: cast, vote, one choice, results, graph, number

Format/Grouping: Large Group during circle time

Materials & Preparation Needed: Mo Willem’s Leonardo the Terrible Monster, Unifix cubes; digital camera, paper and pens for documentation

Time Required: 10 minutes

Anticipatory Set/Connection to Prior Knowledge: During the morning routine, a group of children have chosen to read Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems. Some children have said that the character is scary, whereas others think he’s harmless or even funny.

Learning Experience/Procedures: -At large group time, the teacher will read Leonardo the Terrible Monster to the entire class. -After reading, the teacher can facilitate a discussion about the level of fright Leonardo induces. -The teacher can then explain the voting process, and show how the numbers will be represented by Unifix cubes. -The children will be asked to cast their vote, by raising hands, on whether or not they think he’s scary. -The group can count the number of hands together, and then together count out the number of cubes, as a visual aide or graph. -After each side casts their vote, teachers can ask which group has more votes and discuss the results. -“What does this mean?,” “If the group doesn’t think the same as you, does that make you wrong?”

Individualizations: ELL: Ideas can be restated in Spanish to allow children to fully grasp the ideas of both fear and voting.

Closure: If Leonardo is deemed scary by the group, children can be encouraged to discuss why he is. If not, the teacher can facilitate discussion about what makes a monster scary. Children will be encouraged to implement these ideas in their own drawings, edible creations, and in the “Changing Faces” activity.

Assessment: The process of voting, as well as the children’s ideas can be documented by the teachers in both writing and photographs.

Benchmarks for State Standard: 14.C.EC: Participate in voting as a way of making choices. 18.A.EC: Recognize similarities and differences in people.

Follow-up Experience: More discussions can occur in the culminating activities, surrounding what makes things look scary, or not scary. Children can be encouraged to represent these properties in their own monster drawings. Voting can also be presented as an option on days when there’s a choice to go to the gym or stay in the room for extra free-choice time.