Rationale for Unit of Instruction

Content

Under the supervision of my cooperating teacher Mrs. Rucker and my CI 4000 instructor Lynne Bercaw, I created a unit of instruction that I was able to implement with the students during my internship at Green Valley Elementary School.  I chose to center my unit of instruction on the zoo, therefore I could integrate English language arts, science, social studies, mathematics, and healthful living into the instruction.  In order to create this unit I went through an extensive planning period with Mrs. Rucker and I organized a six lessons that were both comprehensive and interactive.  These six lessons consist of learning about zoo animals, what they are, why they live in the zoo, where they lived before the zoo, and preparation for a zoo field trip.  Each year the kindergartners at Green Valley visit the Asheboro Zoo, so Mrs. Rucker and I thought that it would be appropriate for me to design and teach a unit on the Zoo.  This topic is important to teach to kindergarten students because it is easily aligned to the NCSCS goals and objectives and by learning about animals the students are getting to learn about different parts of the world and about themselves.  Some of the instructional strategies that will be used to teach the content of the lesson include, discussion and a KWL chart for assessing prior knowledge, a math lesson on graphing; that includes direct instruction along with group demonstration, read-aloud of several zoo related books, and guided writing.

Impact

This will help me as a future teacher because it has given me the experience and the practice of creating and implementing a unit of instruction.  Through this experience I have learned that as a teacher you have to be flexible and able to adjust plans or expectations according to the students you have in your classroom.  I also found that this experience has given me a great way to think about all the parts of planning a unit of instruction and in the future I will feel more comfortable in planning and teaching a unit. 

Alignment

I have met NC DPI Standard 7-Indicator 2 because I have integrated English language arts, science, mathematics, social studies, and healthful living into the unit of instruction by including a variety of activities and a variety of instructional methods.

I have met NC DPI Standard 7- Indicator 6 because I have modified instruction to meet the needs of individual instruction in the Zoo Olympics lesson plan by including large visuals that help the students act out the animal movements, and using clear, concise directions that will help the learning disabled.

I have met NC DPI Standard 13 because I have provided an opportunity for the students to be physically active during the school day and discussed with the students the importance of good sportsmanship.

I have met NC DPI Standard 17- Indicator 4 by including a discussion of safety behaviors in the classroom and modeling them for the zoo field trip that the students will eventually take.  Within this discussion and modeling, the students and I have talked about how at the zoo everyone must stay with their assigned group, to keep inside voices, not to disturb the animals, to respect other people, property, and yourself.  During the Zoo Day at School the students modeled this behavior while acting as visitors and zoo keepers at the zoo.

I have met NC DPI Standard 9- Indicator 1 by designing and implementing a math activity that requires students to work in a group and use appropriate strategies to solve a mathematical problem.  In this particular activity the students collected, organized, and displayed data.