Samantha Emerson

Lesson Title: He takes after his mother: A look into animals and their young

Annotation: After this lesson, students should be able to match baby animals
with their parents, identify similarities and differences between the parent and the
baby, and have learned the names of different animal offspring.

Grade Level: First Grade

Subject: Life Science
QCC Objectives: 14 Compares young animals with their parents and with other
types of young animals. Identifies and matches young animals with their parents.
11 Compares and describes different animals in the ways they look, grow, and
move.
12 Compares various animal groups and how they are alike and different.
Identifies groups of animals that have similar characteristics and names the
characteristics.

Technology Connection: Kid Pix, Inspiration Software, Power Point

Preparation: Have each student bring in a baby picture of him/her for

homework.

Materials: Books (Big Book of Baby Animals by NancyJones, and The Very
Hungry Caterpillar Board Book by Eric Carle), KidPix, Inspiration Software, and
Power Point.

Procedures:

1. How will you gain the learners’ attention? Begin the class with
reading the book, Big Book of Baby Animals by NancyJones. Ask the
questions: What is this story about? What characteristics do the baby
animal and the mother animal have in common? What are the
differences? What is the name of a certain baby animals? What are
some of the special needs of human babies? Of animal babies?
2. How will you inform the learners of the objective of your
lesson? Have your students take out the baby picture they were told to
bring from home. Pass out a piece of paper to each of the students and
have them write down three ways that made them different from older
kids or their parents. Then have them write down three ways in which
they are similar to their parents. Ask them these questions to guide them
in their thinking: What are the differences in the way babies look? What
are the things that parents need to do to take care of babies? What kinds
of things do they eat/drink differently? After the students finish the
 assignment, ask them about what they came up with. Following their
responses, tell them that today they will be learning about baby animals,
and how they are similar and different from their parents. Tell them how
you will be able to compare and contrast different baby animals, their
names, and how they are the same/different from human babies.
3. How will you stimulate recall of prior learning? Using a power point
slide show, project pictures of animals onto the screen. Have the students
match the appropriate baby with its parent. A sample power point slide
show can be found at www.arches.uga.edu/~sam06/Animals.ppt Ask your
students what they already know about babies. If you have previously
discussed similar topics in class, recall that lesson and ask them what
they remember.
4. What stimulus will you present and how will you present it? Again,
inform your classroom of the objectives of the lesson, and what you hope
that they will learn from it. In addition to the book read at the beginning of
the class period, at this time, discuss the possibility that not all living
things look like their parents at all, such as butterflies. Read The Very
Hungry Caterpillar Board Book by Eric Carle.
5. How will you provide guidance to the learners? Using Inspiration
software, you will create a concept map comparing parent animals to the
baby animals (You can choose to focus on a category of animals to
narrow the activity, such as farm animals or sea animals.) You will do the
actual constructing of the diagram; however, make sure you are allowing
the students to tell you what to fill in as the content of the map. This
enables you to be the position to guide them in the correct direction, while
they are actually thinking critically themselves.
6. How will you elicit performance from the learners? Using Kid Pix
Software, divide the students into small groups. Each group of 3 or 4 will
go up to a computer at a time and take turns drawing their favorite baby
animal. You will print out their pictures, and have them return to their
desks to write a story about their chosen baby animal. While groups are
using Kid Pix, other students should be working on their stories or
completing a worksheet about names of baby animals. A sample
worksheet can be found at
www.arches.uga.edu/~sam06/animalnames.doc (Their stories should
have at least five sentences.)
7. How will you provide feedback during the performance? Observe
their activity on Kid Pix to make sure they remain focused on the
assignment. Go around the classroom and read what the students are
writing about the animals. Help to correct them if they are writing incorrect
information. As the work on the worksheet, challenge them to do as well
as they can on their own, but be there for them if they have any
questions.
8. How will you assess the performance? Have the students go up in
front of the classroom and show the class their picture and have them
read their story to the class. Also, grade the worksheet to see how well
 they are able to remember the animal names. Hold a discussion again
centered on similar questions that were used to gain the students’
attention and to inform them of the objective. Assess how much they have
learned, through their comments, but primarily through the individual
demonstrations.
9. How will you enhance retention and transfer? You could take a field
trip to a petting zoo, so they can see real, live animals and enhance in a
kinesthetic way, the realities of what they learned in the classroom. If a
field trip is not a possibility, send a note home to parents to ask for
volunteers to bring in pets for a show and tell. In addition to the hands-on
learning, a homework assignment could be given to enhance the retention
and transfer of the information.