For my Upper Literacy class, I had to create a nine day unit plan on the novel Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief for a fourth grade class at Hillview Elementary School. I was assigned a group of four students, who I met and got to know through a three day writing field. Planning, writing, and implementing this unit plan definitely challenged me at the time, but was such a rewarding experience. I learn how to take a well written novel that was full of learning opportunities and chose the major themes and skills I wanted to teach my students for this field. Despite block planning and prepping each day, I learned to be flexible with PSSA testing occurring during the field, which left less time than I had planned for activities. Some activities I planned just did not work for my group of students. From this experience, I learned to change my lesson plans on the spot, adjust future plans based on what we accomplished the day before, and ultimately realized that sticking strictly to the lesson plan does not allow students to always gain the most learning. Some days during this unit plan, I found that my students gained more from our small group discussions than from the short activities I planned in their student packets. Being my first unit plan, I knew not everything would go smoothly, but I adjusted my plans each day and wrote daily reflections about what went well, and what I would change to improve my plans for the future.
Additionally from this unit plan, I learned the importance of making learning come alive for my students. On the first and last day, myself and the other pre-service teachers in my classroom transformed our classroom into an actual camp. We wore Camp Half-Blood t-shirts and created cabin emblems for each of our groups. We ended the unit plan by throwing a blue food party to celebrate finishing the novel. The students loved this and were much more motivated and willing to put in the work when they felt we brought the novel alive for them. Although this unit plan had its highs and its lows, I felt I grew in many areas from this amazing opportunity, especially in the area of flexibility.
Additionally from this unit plan, I learned the importance of making learning come alive for my students. On the first and last day, myself and the other pre-service teachers in my classroom transformed our classroom into an actual camp. We wore Camp Half-Blood t-shirts and created cabin emblems for each of our groups. We ended the unit plan by throwing a blue food party to celebrate finishing the novel. The students loved this and were much more motivated and willing to put in the work when they felt we brought the novel alive for them. Although this unit plan had its highs and its lows, I felt I grew in many areas from this amazing opportunity, especially in the area of flexibility.
lightning_thief_student_packet.docx | |
File Size: | 3199 kb |
File Type: | docx |
unit_plan.docx | |
File Size: | 55 kb |
File Type: | docx |