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Lesson Plan #:AELP-RDG002
Submitted by: Tamara Carey
Email: Magpercy@aol.com
School/University/Affiliation: Saint Joseph College, Hartford, CT Date: November, 1998


Grade Level(s): Kindergarten, 1

Subject(s):

  • Language Arts/Reading

Goals: To identify color words.

Objective(s): Given a booklet with a line from the color song (see Procedure section) on each page with the color word missing, students will be able to tell their teacher two word identification strategies they used in order to choose the correct color word to place on each of the eight pages.

Materials:

  • Large oaktag board with the lyrics of the color song written on it. Each color should be written in it’s respective color ink (i.e. the word red with red ink, etc.)
  • Pointer
  • Blank oaktag strips (large enough to cover a color word)
  • Oaktag strips with a color word written in its respective color
  • Oaktag strips with a color word written in black ink
  • Tape for the back of the oaktag strips
  • Booklets for each student made up of 1/2 sheet pieces of paper with each line from the color song printed on each page with the color word missing.
  • individual color word strips, printed in black ink, cut to the size to fit with the printing on the 1/2 sheets of paper. Each student will have a complete set of the color word strips (8 words in all)
  • glue sticks for each student
  • crayons

Procedure:

Set:

Two weeks before the lesson the teacher will have taught the children the following color song (sung to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider ):

Orange is a carrot
Yellow is a pear
Purple is a plum
Brown is a bear
Green is the grass
Blue is the sky
Black is a witch’s hat
Red is cherry pie

Each time the students sing the song the teacher will have used the pointer to point out each word as it is sung. On the day of the lesson the teacher will sing the song again with the students pointing with the pointer at each word as it is sung. After the teacher sings the song with the students she tells the children that they will play a game with the words to the song and that they should pay particular attention to the color words. Body of lesson:

  • The teacher covers all the color words with the blank oaktag strips. She shows the children the oaktag strips with the color words written in colored marker which she tapes in random order on the blackboard. She does not read the oaktag strips to the children; however, each color word is written in its respective ink. Orange is written in orange ink, red in red ink and so on. The teacher will sing the song again with the students. At this point, she will ask the children which color she should place on the first line of the lyrics. After the class has collectively completed two or three lines of the lyrics, the teacher will choose students who volunteer to come up and pick the color word that they think should go on the next line. This will be a chance to discuss the strategies or clues the child used. More than likely, the child will indicate that they picked that particular word because they memorized the words to the song and therefore knew that the word orange or yellow, for example, belonged in that space and therefore they picked the word that was written in orange or yellow ink. At this point, the teacher will ask the children what other clues they could use other than the ink color. Some of their solutions should include examples similar to the following:
  • I memorized the letters in the word red
  • I knew the word orange started with an o.
  • A pear is yellow and so I picked a long word that had two l’s
  • Blue starts with a b because it has a b sound.
  • I picked the word green because it has two e’s
  • For each color word, the teacher should guide the class to come up with four or five clues that the students could use to help identify that word. Strategies the class could consider could include:

  • The initial letter or ending letter.
  • The size of the word.
  • The sound of the initial letter or ending letter.
  • What words are left over?
  • Reading the rest of the sentence.
  • The number of letters in the word.
  • Leaving the oaktag strips in place on the lyric sheet, the teacher shows the children the oaktag strips with the color words written in black marker which she tapes in random order on the blackboard. This time she tells the children that this is a little more tricky, but she would like them to place the black ink oaktag strip over the correct color oaktag strip. When individual volunteers are finished taping the black ink oaktag strips over the colored ink oaktag strips, she will ask the students to tell the class why they choose that strip. Obviously, most of the students will have matched the letters. This will give her a chance to have the students focus on the word and it’s letters.
  • After singing the song with the color words in black ink. The teacher takes off all the oaktag strips except the blank oaktag strips. She places the black ink oaktag strips in random order again on the blackboard. She indicates that this is more challenging, but she would like volunteers to see if they could put the correct color word over the blank space. Again she asks each student why they chose that word, reaffirming the strategies that they have used. After each volunteer has discussed the clues that they used, the teacher should ask the class for additional strategies for identifying each color word. The teacher closes this activity by singing the song again with the students while using the pointer to point to each word.
  • When the class has completed the above activity, the teacher gives each student a booklet with one line of the song written on each page. However, the color word is missing from each page. In addition, the teacher gives each child strips of paper with each color word written in black ink (8 strips each). The children are then asked to glue the appropriate color word on the correct page. When the children are done gluing the color words on each page, the children will then draw an orange carrot or yellow pear etc. on each page.
  • Closure: After they are done and the teacher has checked their work, the children are asked individually what clues they used for gluing the color word on each page. The teacher will ask each child to read or sing the book to her. After the teacher has met with each child individually, she then closes the lesson by asking the class, What are the different ways to figure out the word orange? The class collectively brainstorms word identification strategies for each color word. The class finishes the lesson by singing the song again. The students can take their books home to read or sing to their families.

    Assessment: As evidenced in the closure, the teacher checks the students booklets to see if the correct color words are glued in the pages. In addition, the teacher asks the student to read or sing the book to her and give her two clues they used to pick the correct word. The teacher should be able to evaluate if the student met the objective based upon their performance.