Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Living Things Lesson Plan
Living Things Lesson Plan
Year level/ age range & number of students: Highlight planning process:
Reception and Year 1, with 26 students Planned collaboratively with Supervising Teacher
Estimated duration of activity: Planned collaboratively with peer
Planned independently based on ST lessons
1 hour Planned Independently
Deconstruction of Supervising Teacher’s lesson
Learning area: (E.g. English, Mathematics, Science, Health & Physical Education, Humanities & Social Sciences, The Arts, Technologies and
Languages)
Science
- Living things have basic needs, including food and water (ACSSU002)
o Elaboration
Recognising the needs of living things in a range of situations such as pets at home,
plants in the garden or plants and animals in bushland
Learning intentions: (Descriptions of what learners should understand and be able to do by the end of a learning period, the
‘what and why’ of the learning task: ‘We are learning to …. (learning intention ‘what) so that we can …… (learning intention
‘why’))
The students will begin learning to identify what classifies a living thing, identifying needs of living things so
that they can effectively categorise living things against non-living things.
The students will describe in detail the specific needs of living things (i.e. water, food, and habitat). The
students will be able to sort living and non-living things into the correct attribute with reason.
Success criteria for students: (clear and specific measures of how students have met the learning intentions, i.e. how they
are going with the task, this can include both learning content and strategies; ‘I know that I can do this when I have ……)
The teacher will first have a discussion with the students on what classifies a plant as a living thing, once the
students have listed a few key aspects (water, sun and soil) the teacher will move on to having the students
draw the plant with the key aspects.
Once the students have drawn the plant the teacher will move onto animals and what classifies them as a
living thing.
A4 paper, Coloured pencils, led pencils, a model of a flower, ‘Living Things’ interactive game, ‘Living Things’
worksheet (provided by the Science Teacher)
Differentiation: (Are there any students that I need to personalise the activity for)
The teacher will position themselves near Oscar to ensure that he keeps on track with the sentences.
The teacher will have the students sit on the mat and go through a relaxing breathing
exercise to calm the students after Recess.
Introduction: (hook/ tuning in: how will I gain the interest of the students in the topic?) 3 minutes
The teacher will start the lesson with an interactive smart board game which shows the
students a picture (either butterfly, bike, grass, fire and a mushroom) which they will then
discuss whether it should be classified as ‘Living’, ‘Non-living’ or ‘Not Sure’.
Pre-service Teacher facilitated mini-lesson: (explicit teaching & modelling of topic content, 7 minutes
strategies and learning focus, explanation of learning intentions) Adapt to less time for
younger children)
The preservice teacher will have a discussion with the students regarding what Plants and
animals need to survive.
The teacher will first focus on the Plant discussing with the students what important
resources a plant needs to grow. Utilising the model plant in the Science room the
preservice teacher will place it in the middle of the student circle as they are actively
discussing.
Student focussed work period: (Students collaborative or independent student work period; 10-15 minutes
how will students engage with the topic, how will I check all students understand the activity, how
will I use proximity to determine their understanding and give specific feedback relating to success
criteria)
With the flower plant in the middle of the group the students will draw the flower with the
different resources that it needs to grow. The preservice teacher will observe the students
asking prompting questions to direct students thinking.
After they have drawn the flower the pre-service teacher will then have the students draw
an animal of their choosing and its subsequent resources that help keep it alive.
Conclusion WWW reflection: (How will I transition students to the close of the activity? How 5 minutes
will I determine if they fulfilled the success criteria and learning intentions? How will I include
student voice and my feedback on what worked well ‘WWW’ in relation to learning and the
learning strategies they used?)
To close the activity the teacher will bring the students back into the circle drawing a
flower on the board. Students will be invited up to draw key resources that the flower
needs to grow.
Evaluation:
Did the lesson go as planned? Did I organise and manage the activity well?
Did I use effective communication? Did I provide clear directions?
Did the students achieve the specific learning intentions? Were there any students that I needed to differentiate the activity for?
How would I improve in my next planned activity?
The lesson went as planned and I was able to effectively implement behaviour management strategies that I have
observed my Supervising Teacher use previously. The students engaged effectively in the concept and were able to
name key resources needed for living things to survive in the end discussion. As this was my first time in the Science
classroom I was unsure where to find certain items (such as the pencils or paper) and I relied on the students to find
these. At first this worked fine, however, when I only wanted one student to bring pencils 3 more students were
already racing to the area to grab the stuff first. In future lessons I will be better prepared when presenting my
lesson.
I had to implement differentiation strategies for Ama as she found it difficult to grasp what I was asking of her. Having
the physical flower as a reference for her drawing supported her to some extent; however, she became quickly
distracted.