My Unit Plan Experience

For the last five weeks I have had the pleasure of working with five third
grade students on a unit about plants native to Michigan. During this unit,
students met once a week for a fifty minute period, and focused on learning
a variety of facts about the Michigan-native plant, the Black Eyed Susan.
Though technology, read alouds, and silent reading articles students learned
about its habitat, parts of a plant, and fun facts. When teaching the lessons I
used the guidance of the Common Core English Standards for third grade, as
well as Michigans Grade Level Content Expectation for science. Using these
standards and expectations guided my lessons to have grade appropriate
learning objectives.
Through the planning of this unit what helped me out most was the
planning grid. It helped me organize my ideas, get a rough outline of what I
wanted to accomplish, and organize my materials for my unit plan. What I
learned throughout the planning process is to be flexible because some
activities may not be accomplished on the day I have them assigned. This is
also why the planning grid was most helpful. It showed everything I planned
to do throughout the unit in one document. It was easier to move activities
and assignments around while continuing to plan for the rest of the unit.
While completing the unit plan there was more to plan for than just a
lesson, accommodations had to be made so each student could successfully
complete the lesson and understand what was being taught. Each lesson

included objectives that were to be met by the students. Out of the five
students in my group I was able to gauge their learning abilities through the
activities done each week. The first activity I used to assess students level of
comprehension and writing ability was an exit ticket. An exit ticket is a piece
of paper student wrote on answering a question I left them with at the end of
the lesson. Some student were able to completely write out a logical
sentence but one student, Sammie, was unable to grasp what the question
was asking and give a correct answer. For example at the end of the first
lesson I asked the question What did you learn today? Sammie answered
with how flowers grow at no point in the lesson did we talk about how
flowers grow. After our first lesson together I learned that Sammie had a
learning disability. Once I had retained this information I was intrigued by the
other students learning abilities and how they differentiated.
After close observation of reading and writing abilities I assessed how the
students performed throughout the unit using read alouds, silent readings,
exit tickets, and writing a report at the end of the unit. Emma was quiet at
first but she is a strong reader and writer with early fluent reading abilities
and fluent writing abilities. Lauren was very cooperative and was eager to
learn. Lauren showed signs of being a fluent reader during the read aloud
and an emergent writer writing the report. Carson was the student who often
acted out and caused most of the distraction but showed the most
knowledge when it came to answering questions, reading the materials, and
writing the report. Johnny loved to volunteer and read aloud anything I would

let him. He was also very proud of the work that he accomplished. Johnny
showed skills of an early fluent reader and early fluent writer. Sammie, as I
mentioned before has a learning disability, but this only impacted her writing
abilities. Sammie was able to read silently and transfer what she read onto
another sheet of paper. Her reading abilities were at the beginning stage,
and her writing ability was also at the beginning stage. Sammie could easily
spell out sight words but she often times spelled other words out
phonetically.
As I assessed each student I had to make adjustments for my lessons. For
Sammie, I provided extra assistance like writing portions out for her, having
her sit next to me, and reading our silent reading article out loud. Carson
also sat next to me so I was able to monitor his behavior closely.
Over the last five weeks, teaching a group of third graders has taught me
how to make preparation for a lesson more efficiently. I struggled in all of my
other lessons throughout this semester wasting time over little details and
perfecting a lesson. While I believe in making a lesson as great as it can be,
sweating over the small details is not practical. I only had a group of five
students, tailoring my lessons to fit a larger group would have taken a much
longer prep time and therefore unrealistic. It will be something I will have to
work on during my career as a new teacher but I am hopeful a routine will
help make my transition smoother.
Overall, these last five weeks have gone by extremely fast. Looking back I
was overwhelmed by what a unit plan entailed and scared about having to

accomplish so many objectives. However, now that the unit is done I am

proud of all of my students hard work, what I have accomplished over the
last five weeks, and how I have grown as a pre-service teacher. I am grateful
and will continue to reflect on this experience as I continue into block two of
methods.