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Lesson Plan : Three Little Kittens

Teacher Name:
 Emily Zuber
Grade:
 Kindergarten
Subject:
 Language Arts

Topic:
 Summarizing
Content:
 The cooperative learning structure integrated into this lesson is Think, Pair, Share. I chose to use this structure because I think that it is important for students to have the opportunity to communicate their thoughts and ideas with classmates. I feel that this structure helps students to gain confidence when sharing ideas in small and whole group discussions. This structure also allows students to take time during a lesson to think about what they are learning and it also allows them to reflect on these thoughts as they are discussing them with fellow classmates. Vocabulary: summary, soiled, main idea, details
Goals:
 The students will work together to discuss and summarize stories.
Objectives:
 The students will summarize and determine the main ideas in Three Little Kittens. The students will participate in the cooperative learning structure, Think, Pair, Share when reading Three Little Kittens. The students will work in pairs to create a picture summary showing the main ideas of a story. Language Objective: The students will use oral language to express ideas and share thoughts with others.
Materials:
 Three Little Kittens, by Paul Galdone; Houghton Mifflin, 1986. Scott Foresman 2004 Reading Edition, Volume Four, Kindergarten Level(Three Little Kittens Lesson) Chart Paper Summary Sheets Markers Additional books for independent practice
Introduction:
 To begin the lesson, introduce the word summary to the students. Ask the students if they know what it means to give a summary of a story. After the students have had a chance to share their ideas, explain the meaning of the word summary to the students. (To tell the main ideas.) Tell students that they will be creating a summary for the story, Three Little Kittens.
Development:
 Before beginning the lesson, direct students' attention to the whiteboard placed in the front of the room. The students' names should be written on the white board and students should be paired up with another student. For each pair of students, write the first students' name in one color and the second students' name in a different color. Read the pairs aloud to the students so they know who they are paired with. Before beginning the lesson, arrange the students on the carpet so they are sitting next to their partner. Tell the students that they are going to be working with their partner as you are reading Three Little Kittens to discuss and share ideas from events in the story. Tell students that you will be stopping at different parts in the story to ask questions. Explain how Think, Pair, Share works. Tell the students that first you will ask them a question or give them an idea to think about. Give students time to think about the question or statement before sharing with their partner. Then you will tell them which partner is to share first by calling out the color of one of the partners. The first student will then share their thoughts in the pair and the other partner will follow. Then tell students that you will call on pairs to share their thoughts to the whole class. Explain to them that all of these steps are a part of the Think, Pair, Share process. To model the process for the students, have a student come up in front of the class to model with you. Show students what it will look like when they do Think, Pair, Share with their partner. Before starting the activity, do a "mock" Think, Pair, Share so they will feel comfortable when they do it with Three Little Kittens. Show students the book, Three Little Kittens. Have students discuss the pictures that they see on the cover and ask them what they think the story will be about. Begin reading Three Little Kittens with the students. Have questions already prepared that you will be asking the students as part of the Think, Pair, Share strategy. Example questions: "Where do you think the kittens lost their mittens?", "Have you ever lost something like the kittens in the story?", "Why do you think the kittens ate the pie with their mittens on?". After reading the story to the students, discuss events that happened in the story. Tell students that you will be re-reading Three Little Kittens with the students. Before reading the story again, review the word summary with the students. Tell students to focus on the main events in the story as you read it the second time. A fun way to get the students involved as you read the story again is to have them read the part of the three kittens. When the three kittens talk in the story hold up a symbol to tell students that it is their turn to read the story with you. Pause as you are reading the story to discuss what is happening in the story. When you have finished reading Three Little Kittens a second time with the students, prompt students to think about main ideas in the story. Give students time to think about the main ideas and then use the Think, Pair, Share strategy to have them discuss their thoughts.
Practice:
 Use chart paper to develop a summary of the story, Three Little Kittens with the students. Draw a large mitten on chart paper and then draw four smaller mittens inside of the large mitten. Ask students why they think you are drawing mittens to write the main ideas of the story. Invite the students to discuss the relationship the mittens on the chart have with the story.(The kittens had mittens in the story.) Tell the students that you will be working together to think of the main ideas of the story and that each idea will go in a mitten. Remind students that when you think about the main ideas of a story, you are creating a summary. Guide students in thinking of the main ideas in the story, Three Little Kittens. What was the story mostly about? What were the most important parts of the story? Make sure to clarify what the difference is between the details and the main ideas. To help students brainstorm main ideas from the story, tell them to pretend that they are retelling the story to one of their friends who has not read the story before. Have them think about what the most important parts of the story would be to tell their friend. To guide the students in this thinking process, invite them to think about the first thing that happenened to the kittens and their mittens in the story. (The kittens lost their mittens.) Then have them tell you what happened after the kittens lost their mittens.(The kittens found their mittens. Then, the kittens soiled their mittens and finally, the kittens washed their mittens.) As you are discussing these events with the students, record each event in a mitten on the summary chart. After you have completed the summary chart with the students, call on students to retell main ideas of the story from the mitten chart. For additional practice in this target skill, show students a different way to create the summary of a story. On the board, post index cards with these words in this order: Who, Wanted, But, So , Then. Guide students in filling in each section. Start off focusing on a main character in the story. For Example: Who: Mother Cat, Wanted: the kittens to take care of their mittens, But: the kittens lost their mittens, So: the kittens found their mittens, Then: the kittens soiled and washed their mittens. This is another way to create a summary. As you are completing this activity with the students, redirect their attention back to the previous summary activity with the mittens. This will help guide the students as they are filling in the chart with you.
Accommodations:
 In order to meet the needs of all students in the classroom, accommodations must be made. If students are having a difficult time brainstorming main ideas for their story during the independent practice activity, have a set of books available that you have read with the students throughout the year. Students will be familiar with these books and they will have an actual resource that they can refer back to when developing their picture summary. Having the actual book will help aid these students in the brainstorming process. Students won't feel so overwhelmed they are trying to remember events that happened in the story. Also, some students may not have access to reading books at home and they may not know about as many books as other students. Providing books for the students to work with will help meet the needs of these students. Having students develop a picture summary will be especially accomodating to ESL students because their English vocabulary may not be as strong as some of their classmates. Having the students create pictures to describe the main ideas in the story instead of writing sentences will help these students feel more comfortable.
Checking For Understanding:
 To check for understanding, discuss the word summary with the students. Invite students to explain what it means to summarize a story. Make sure that students understand that a summary is just including the main ideas of a story and not every detail. Group pairs of students together so two pairs of students are in each group. Have the students share the picture summaries they made together and monitor as they are describing the main events in each story. Check to make sure that students are giving a summary and not retelling every little detail.
Closure:
 Gather students together for a whole group discussion. Discuss the word summary and invite students to reflect on activities throughout the lesson where they had to create a summary as an entire class and in pairs. Discuss steps that are taken when creating the summary of a story. Ask students why it is important to learn how to summarize and when they might use this skill in real life experiences.
Evaluation:
 One way to assess the students is to have each pair present the picture summary they created to the rest of the class. Students will tell what story they picked and they will describe the different pictures they used to show their summary. As students are presenting their summaries, listen to see if students are providing you with the main ideas of the story or if they are telling you extra details that are not necessary for the summary. After students have completed their picture summaries, you could also have each pair tell you the main ideas they included in their picture summary and these thoughts can be recorded on their summary sheet. This will be helpful as you are reflecting on the lesson to see what the students learned as well as what parts of the lesson may need to be re-taught.
Teacher Reflections:
 I really enjoyed doing this activity with my Kindergarten students. They were very excited to read the Three Little Kittens, especially when they got to read the part of the kittens. They were so eager to participate! I loved that I could find different ways to incorporate them into the lesson. At first, some of the students had a little trouble distinguishing the main parts of the story from some of the details. I made sure to spend additional time on the guided practice activities until I felt confident that the students were ready to practice the skill on their own. Most of the pairs did a very good job at working together to brainstorm stories they had both read before. There were some pairs that had a tougher time thinking of ideas so I spent extra time with them to figure out what books they were both familiar with. The students seemed to really enjoy creating pictures to show the summary of their story. I liked the idea of the students doing a picture summary because it gave them the opportunity to be creative and use their thinking skills to decide how they were going to use pictures to show the main ideas of their story.

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