Brigham Preschool: sight lesson

Last week, I was an aid to Laine and Brittney for their lesson in preschool.  The lesson they did was all about sight.  I think they did a great job overall, especially in engaging the students.  My favorite part of their lesson was when they allowed the students to make their own binoculars.  This was the part of the lesson that the students really started to open up.  I was working with a few students at one of the tables.  One of the little girls I was working with would not talk, but I could tell from her facial and body expressions that she was very excited about what they were doing.  This goes for all of the other students as well.  Some of the students could not speak English very well, or just did not talk at all, and I could still tell that they were engaged. 

I thought their lesson was very developmentally appropriate for English Language Learners because they used many visuals and hands on tasks.  For example, when singing the song at the beginning, they showed a visual while they sang with the students.  Also, the binoculars activity was appropriate for ELL students because it was a hands-on activity that allowed them to be creative.  They were all also assisted by a teacher to create the binoculars. 

The only feedback I would have to make their lesson run more smoothly would be to have a set transition between the binoculars activity and the I spy game.  Students were finishing at different times and Laine had to kind of think on her feet to come up with something for the students to do while they waited for everyone.  She did a great job doing this, but I think they would have been a little less stressed if they had planned for this possibility in advance and had a plan b.  Seeing that the students are in preschool, I think that smooth transitions and differentiation for students that finish early is an essential piece of lesson planning. 

Something fun that they could have also added to their lesson would have been to take the students into the hallway to find things with their binoculars.  I think that the students would have liked the option to leave the classroom and explore the hallway.  Brigham has many things hanging from the ceiling in the preschool hallway as well as on the bulletin boards.  Keeping the students in that one preschool hallway could have been a good gross motor activity to get them moving.  If the weather was nicer, this could be adapted to go outside and search for things on the playground.

Overall, I think that the students really enjoyed this lesson and Laine and Brittney did an awesome job teaching it.  They divided up the teaching aspect very fairly so that the students were aware that they were both the teacher during this lesson.  I think they also did a great job with the accommodations and differentiation for ELL students in their planning.  This is definitely a lesson that I would share with other teachers and try out myself.

EXCEEDS: I provided suggestions for the future (if this lesson were to be taught again) as well as a visual of what the binoculars for this lesson looked like.