Effective Fall 2014

Baldwin Wallace University

School of Education
Lesson Plan
Rachel Forrer
I. Major Topic:
Folk Tales The Little Red Hen: Identifying characters, settings and
major events in a story.
Date:
October 10 Grade Level: Kindergarten
II. MATERIALS: The Little Red Hen retold by Heather Forest, Illustrated by Susan Gaber,
24 animal masks (dog, cat, mouse), exit slip
III. CANDIDATE Resources: JOURNEYS curriculum book, Unit 1 Lesson 5: Helping
IV. (A.) NATIONAL/STATE Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.3

With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.
IV. (B.) National/State technology standards (if applicable):
N/A
V. Objective(s):
By the end of the three-day unit, students will be able to identify the characters, setting,
and major events in a folk tale.
By the end of todays lesson, students will act out the story by becoming the characters.
I can play a character in a story.
I can retell a story using the five-finger retell.
Vocabulary
Character
Setting
Folktale
VI. Introduction:
Strategy and Grouping Pattern Used/Group Size:
Carpet time whole group instruction (24 students) for read aloud and discussion.
Students will then be divided into three predetermined groups for the acting out of the
story. All three ability levels will be present in each group below level, on level, and
above level.
Dog Group- 2 Students, 3 Students, 2 Students.
Cat Group- 2 Students, 5 Students, 1 Student
Mouse Group- 1 Student, 5 Students, 2 Students,
Transition/Focus Attention:
Students will come to the carpet after lunch and sit down. Stop, look and listen to gain
attention.
Motivation/Hook:

Effective Fall 2014

Hold up a bundle of wheat. Who can raise a quiet hand and tell me what this is? Does
anyone know what we make out of wheat? (flour) Good! Flour starts out as wheat seeds. I
am going to pass around a bag of wheat seeds, or grains. Do not open the bag. If you open
the bag, you will need to sit out from this activity. (pass around baggie of wheat grains).
After those seeds are planted, it grows into wheat stalks. (Pass around wheat stalks). Once
its harvested, it can be turned into flour (pass around baggie of flour). A place that turns
wheat grains into flour is called a mill. What kinds of foods are made out of flour? (bread,
cake, muffins, cookies, cereal). Take out a muffin and show it to the class. Muffins are
something that can be made out of flour! While youre looking at and feeling the grains,
were going to watch a short video about how wheat is turned into flour at a mill. (show
video)
Set Behavior Expectations:
Students will sit quietly at the carpet during the read aloud and discussion. Students will
participate in acting out the story and use materials appropriately. Students who are
disruptive will get two verbal warnings before moving a clip.
Set Purpose:
Students will learn about the character, setting and main events in a story by acting out
the story.
Assess (activate and/or build) Background Knowledge:
What is a character? What is a setting? Have you ever helped someone before? What does
it mean to be a good helper?
VII. Steps/Learning Activities/Differentiated Instruction: (Check Students
Understanding during the Lesson)
(Anticipated Time for each step)
1. Do hook activity and video (see above). (6 min)
2. Today we are going to read a story about someone doing lots of hard work to turn
wheat grains into flour to bake a yummy treat! Who has ever done something to
help your mom, dad, grandma or grandpa around the house? (draw sticks to call on
several students to share). Who has ever been asked to help, but really did not want
to? Some of the characters in our story are not being very good helpers. The story
we are going to read today is called a folktale. A folktale is a story that is many
years old. The characters in folktales are often animals instead of people. Who can
tell me what a character is in a story? (The somebodies or the people or animals
that play a part in our story). When I read this story, I want you to pay close
attention to who our characters are, which ones are hard workers, and which ones
arent. I also want you to listen for the setting of our story. What does setting mean?
(where/when the story takes place). (2 min)
3. Read The Little Red Hen aloud to students. Who can tell me one of the
characters from our story? Put pictures up as students say them) What was the
setting? (put picture up). What happened at the beginning of our story? (she
found wheat seeds). What did she do with the wheat seeds? (planted them)
Did anyone help her? (no) What happened after the wheat grew? (she
cut/harvested the grain) Did anyone help her? (no) What did she do with the
wheat grains? (turned them into flour) Did anyone help her? (no) What did she

Effective Fall 2014

make out of the flour? (cake) Did she share it? (no) Why didnt she share it?
(nobody helped her) **use grain props to prompt questioning**
If you were the Little Red Hen, would you have shared your cake with the
other characters? Why or why not? Call on several students to share. Then have
them use their quiet whisper voices to tell their neighbors what they would do.
(10 min)
4. Now you are going to have a chance to be the characters in our story! I will divide
you into three groups. One group will play the dog, the second group will play the
cat, and the third group will play the mouse. What did the characters say when the
hen asked them to help her? (not I). Have the class say it together. Explain to
students that they will each get a mask. When it is their turn to speak in the story,
they will stand up and say the words with me, then sit down. Demonstrate once.
Hand out the masks. Have students stand together with their group. What does
the dog/cat/mouse sound like? Give students a chance to practice saying Not
I! with their groups. Read through the story, signal for the students to stand and
participate when they hear their character, then sit back down. (15 min)
5. Teach students the Five-Finger Retell (somebody, wanted, but, so, then). This is a
tool you can use to help remember the important parts, or Main Events in a story.
And the great part is, you always have it with you, because you always have your
hand with you! Hold up your hand, say somebody, wanted, but, so, then while
pointing to your fingers. The somebody is the main character of our story! Who
was the main character, or the somebody? (the hen) What did the hen want in this
story? (to bake a cake) But what happened? (no one would help her) So what did
she do? (she did it herself) Then what happened at the end? (she ate it herself!) (10
min)
6. Have students return to their seats. Pass out muffins for students to eat while
completing exit slips. (10 min)
Differentiated instructionThis lesson teaches to a variety of modalities.
Visual - character card pictures, flourmill video, character masks
Tactile - handling the wheat stalks, wheat seeds and flour, holding the character masks
Kinesthetic - walking up to the board to place character cards, standing up and sitting
down while acting out the story
Auditory listening to the read-aloud, engaging in class discussion about story, speaking
characters lines aloud during story retelling
Strategic questioning is also used. Students with higher cognitive abilities were asked
more challenging questions, those with lower abilities were asked questions they could be
successful answering, and open ended questions were asked where students could answer
based on their own experience or level of ability.
The grouping also reflected ability, each group has a variety of ability level to assist the
ones who struggle and to help each group be successful.
Closure:
What did we do today? (read the Little Red Hen) Who were the characters in our story?
(the hen, dog, cat and mouse) what was the setting? (the house, the farm) Would
anyone like to try doing their five-finger retell for the class? Call on a few students to
share something they learned from the story.

Effective Fall 2014

Assessment Activities: Determine that objectives were met and that learning
occurred.
Students will participate in the class discussion about the story and the characters. I will
observe students to see if they understand what a character is based
Transition: Students will move back to the carpet and sit in their square to watch the
math introduction video.
VII. REFLECTION
How do you know that learning took place? How does the data support your conclusion?
Through observation of the students and through class discussion, I could see that
students were understanding. They were able to identify the characters in the story, with
some prompting they were able to identify the setting, and could complete the five-finger
retell as a whole group. The exit slip confirmed my observations. 21 out of 24 students
completed their exit slip perfectly. My two lowest students struggled with the exit slip.
What kind of adaptations did you make to accommodate individual differences? What
other adaptations would be helpful to accommodate the needs of individual students?
The lesson was active and very multimodal, and the questioning reflected the needs of the
students, but a few of my struggling students would have benefitted from more support
during the written exit ticket. I would have been sure to go over the directions one-on-one
with them and guided through the assessment. But the results reflected how I thought the
population of the class would perform. One student struggled with the exit slip. I designed
a separate assessment for him to do at another time to reassess what he knows about
characters and settings. I also designed a separate, more challenging assessment for my
other focus child, Landon, who needs more challenging work.
Other than the modifications discussed above, would you change any aspect of the plan or
how you conducted the lesson? (E.g. introduction and transitions, sequence of activities,
time management, questioning, etc.) Why or why not? What changes would you make?
I would have found a way to speed up the process of handing out the masks and assigning
spots on the carpet for the students. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would put
masking tape on the carpet to make designated sections for each group. A lot of time was
lost trying to organize the groups and hand out materials. I would also use a visual to
represent the Five-Finger retell to help students understand and utilize the retelling tool.
Signature of Cooperating Teacher:

Date: