REEP Lesson Plan
TEACHER’S NAME: Karla Abston-Posthumus
LEVEL: A (100/150)
LIFESKILLS UNIT: Understanding Child’s School
LESSON OBJECTIVE: Given a school calendar, identify key dates, including school closings, holidays, and report cards.
TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION: n/a
LANGUAGE SKILLS TO BE PRACTICED AND ASSESSED IN THIS LESSON:
SpeakingListeningWritingReading
NON-LANGUAGE SKILLS PRACTICED IN THIS LESSON:
Communication Skills: Read With Understanding, Speak So Others Can
Understand, Listen Actively
Decision-Making Skills: Plan
Interpersonal Skills: Cooperate With Others
Lifelong Learning Skills: Take Responsibility for Learning, Reflect and Evaluate
ESTIMATED TIME: 2 hours
RESOURCES AND MATERIALS NEEDED:
chart paper, sentence strips, tape, markers, something to throw (ball), paper bag, post-it notes, months papers, holidays matching activity, a variety of calendars, school activity sentence strips in two colors, student copies of blank school calendar, school activity list on transparency, student copies of school activity list, student copies of completed school calendar, Adult Education brochures, Vocabulary Sorting Activity, mini-poster size blank year calendars
LESSON PLAN AND TEACHER’S NOTES
Warm-up/Review:
- Review days of the week by having students stand in a circle and throw a ball to one another. The first student starts with Monday and each student thereafter will say the next day of the week.
- Review months of the year with ball game as previously described. A different review is to have little papers with one month of the year written on each. You should have one paper per student, ie. there might be more than one student with the same month. Students will choose one out of a paper bag and then line up in order of the months of the year starting with January. Once lined up students can say their months in order and then put the little paper back in the bag to repeat the activity.
- Review holidays with matching activity or concentration game. Teacher should prepare baggies that have papers with dates, e.g. December 25, 3rd Thursday in November, and other papers with holiday names, e.g. Christmas, Thanksgiving. Students work with a partner to simply match the dates to the holiday names or play concentration game with the papers.
- Throughout the review activities for days of the week, months of the year, and holidays, students should be reviewing the vocabulary for ordinal numbers and order words, e.g. first, last, before, after. For example, in the months of the year review activity, students can practice, “February comes after January and before March.” and/or “February is the 2nd month of the year.”
Introduction to the lesson:
Today we are going learn how to read a school calendar. While we are going to discuss school calendars today, there are many other types of calendars. Let’s brainstorm a list of other situations where you use a calendar. Write class list on chart paper. Have a variety of calendars to show students. “Why are calendars important?” It’s important to be able to read a school calendar because you will be better able to participate in your child’s school activities and support your child’s education when you know what events are going on in their school. So we are also going to understand the vocabulary for different events that happen during the school year and you’ll see that vocabulary on the school calendar.
Presentation:
- Ask students about times when they go to their child’s school. Make a class list of their responses, e.g. to meet with a teacher, to pick up my child when they’re sick, to have lunch, to go on a field trip, to take them their homework. Discuss which items on the list are actual planned activities. Circle those items.
- Those might be items that you find on a school calendar because they are planned in advance. Have sentence strips prepared with other events and activities that are found on a school calendar: parent-teacher conferences, first day of school, return report cards to school, open house, music program, PTA meeting, bake fair, Fall Festival, Clean-Up School Day, etc. Have the mandatory activities written on one color of sentence strip and the optional activities written on a different color sentence strip. Mix them all up as you present the activity strips and tape them on the board. Do not draw any attention to the different colors or that some are mandatory activities and others are optional. That will happen later in the Vocabulary Sorting Practice Activity. Explain each activity as most will be new vocabulary words/phrases.
- Hand out a blank school year calendar to each student. Teacher will have the list of school activities on a transparency on the overhead. As teacher reads each activity and date aloud, students write the activity in the appropriate date on their blank calendar. When finished, hand out a copy of that overhead list and have students re-read the list and check their calendars to see that they filled their calendars in correctly.
- Ask each student a “When is…?” question based on the calendar that they just filled in. While one student will orally respond, the other students should be looking for the answer on their calendar.
Practice Activities:
- Give each student one month of a school calendar with about 8-10 activities filled in on different dates. Have students form 2 dialogue lines and ask each other “When is ______?” questions based on the calendar in front of them, e.g. Student A: “When is the first day of school?” Student B responds: “The first day of school is September 6th.”
- Give each student an Adult Education brochure. Have students write important dates from the brochure in calendar from Presentation. Should include: registration dates, first day of class, last day of class, school closings, holidays.
- Vocabulary Sorting Activity: With a partner, students receive a little baggie with word/phrase cards. Students need to place the word/phrase card under the appropriate heading on a paper, “Mandatory Activities” or “Optional Activities”. Discuss what the words “mandatory” and “optional” mean. For example, “parent-teacher conference” = Mandatory Activity, “Fall Festival”- Optional Activity. Go over responses with whole class.
Application:
Each parent will bring in their child’s school schedule for the year or they will need to call their child’s school to get specific dates for: First Day of School, First/Second/Third/Fourth Quarter Report Cards, Parent/Teacher Conferences, Winter Break, Spring Break, Last Day of School, Teacher Workdays, and one special event. Teacher will give each student a blank year calendar (no events filled in) and students will transfer those important school dates onto their new personal calendar. A yearly calendar that is on one page (mini-poster size) would be ideal for students to see all of the events at one time and to perhaps post on their fridge.
Evaluation Activity:
Each student will present their family calendar. Students will choose a question of a paper bag and they will ask the presenting student their question, e.g. “When is the first day of school?”. The presenting student will respond to that question using their child’s school’s information which they have written on their family calendar. All of the important dates that were requested in the assignment will be asked about and expected to be written on the calendar.
Reflection Activity:
Give each student four post-it notes. On each of three of the notes, they should write one new vocabulary word that they learned. On the fourth post-it note, they should write where they are going to keep their new family calendar. Students will then anonymously stick their post-it notes on the appropriate chart paper on the wall, “New Vocabulary Words I learned…” or “Where are you going to keep your family calendar?”. Go over with the whole class.
Extension Activities for the Classroom and Beyond:
- Write
- all the important family dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) on your family calendar.
- Find a monthly or yearly calendar or list of important dates for a place other than a school, e.g. church, recreation center, library. Transfer the important dates to your family calendar to maintain a central calendar.
New Year’s Day
Valentine’s Day
President’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day
Mother’s Day
Memorial Day
Father’s Day
Fourth of July
Labor Day
Columbus Day
Halloween
Veteran’s Day
Thanksgiving
Christmas
January 1
February 14
Third Monday in February
March 17
Second Sunday in May
Last Monday in May
Third Sunday in June
July 4
First Monday in September
Second Monday in October
October 31
November 11
Last Thursday in November
December 25
School Activities and Dates
First Day of SchoolSeptember 6
Parent-Teacher ConferencesNovember 2, March 14
Return Report Cards to SchoolNovember 4, March 16
Open HouseSeptember 13
Music ProgramDecember 15, May 27
PTA MeetingFirst Tuesday of every month
Bake Fair April 11
Fall FestivalOctober 4
Clean-Up School DayApril 20
Winter BreakDecember 21-January 3
Teacher WorkdaysOctober 29, January 10, March 12
Last Day of SchoolJune 19
Spring BreakMarch 25-April 2
First Quarter Report CardsNovember 2
Second Quarter Report CardsJanuary 12
Third Quarter Report CardsMarch 14
Fourth Quarter Report CardsJune 19
Picture DaySeptember 28
Field DayMay 23
MANDATORY ACTIVITYFirst Day of School
Winter BreakParent-Teacher Conferences
First Quarter Report CardsSecond Quarter Report Cards
Third Quarter Report CardsFourth Quarter Report Cards
Return Report Cards to School
Spring Break
Teacher Workdays
Last Day of School /
OPTIONAL ACTIVITY
Open House
Music ProgramPTA Meeting
Bake Fair
Fall Festival
Clean-Up School Day
Picture Day
Field DayBook Fair