Driver- First Grade- John C Myers

LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program
I. TITLE OF LESSON Lego Blends
II. CONTEXT OF LESSON
During reading class, students have been practicing literacy through reading and writing activities.
Within this broad topic, students are learning to read and understand different letter combinations, such
as blends and digraphs. My main practicum class is split during this time based on reading levels. I will
implement this lesson in my cooperating teachers reading class which is the medium level group.
These students have been working with various activities to practice their comprehension with
digraphs, usually through worksheets. I decided to find a new way to help them practice these skills. A
word sort is a creative and hands on approach to helping students learn these digraphs.
III. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand: The students will understand beginning and ending two letter consonant blends.
Know: Students will know digraphs and be able to differentiate between multiple words with digraphs.
Do: Students will complete a word sort.
IV. COLLECTION OF ASSESSMENT DATA
After students complete the word sort, they will copy the lists into their notebook. This will ensure that
the students understood the assignment and have created a study list.
V. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (K & 1) OR FOUNDATION BLOCKS
(Preschool)
Reading
1.6 The student will apply phonetic principles to read and spell.
c) Use two letter consonant blends to decode and spell single-syllable words.
VI. MATERIALS NEEDED
Legos
Sharpie
VII. PROCEDURE
A. PREPARATION OF THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Using a worksheet from my teacher, I created multiple sets of words using families of blends.
Beginning sounds
Page
1

Driver- First Grade- John C Myers

CA-

BA-

Cat
Cab
Can
Cap
Cash

Bad
Bat
Bag
Ban
Back

Ending sounds
-IN
Shin
Fin
Tin
Thin
Pin

-IT
Fit
Sit
Hit
Pit
Kit

I then used this list to create sets, by writing words on varying colored Legos with Sharpie. I created
four sets of each of the beginning sounds families- CA (cat, cab, can, cap, cash) and BA (bad, bat, bag,
ban, back) and two sets of each of the ending sounds families- IN (shin, fin, tin, thin, pin) and IT (fit,
sit, hit, pit, kit). I then created the bags, 4 in total, two marked #1 and two marked #2. Bag #1 contains
2 sets of the word families with beginning digraphs (CA and BA). Bag #2 is the more advanced group
with 4 sets of word families with both beginning digraphs (CA and BA) and ending digraphs (IN and
IT).
B. INTRODUCTION AND ORGANIZATION
This activity will be implemented during reading time, which is split into centers. I will work with the
students working independently at their desks. Usually this group works on a worksheet, but my
teacher has given me permission to conduct an activity during this time. Since the class is split into 3
groups, each group will contain 6 kids. When a group arrives at this station I will split them up into
groups of 3, based on their reading levels. Due to the fact that I have been working with these students
for a few months, I have accumulated a solid understanding of each students individual reading
proficiency level, which will help me put the students into groups. The goal is to match students with
similar abilities. Based on their mutual skill level, I will either give them a bag marked #1 or #2.
C. IMPLEMENTATION
I will tell students then to take the blocks out of the bag and attempt to sort the words based on the
digraph.
The students with bag #1 will attempt to stack the five Legos that begin with CA (cat, cab, can, cap,
cash) and BA (bad, bat, bag, ban, back). While the students with bag #2 will attempt to stack both of
these sets, as well as the two sets with ending digraphs- IN (shin, fin, tin, thin, pin) and IT (fit, sit, hit,
pit, kit).
Page
2

Driver- First Grade- John C Myers

D. CLOSURE
After the students have finished sorting they will call me over to check it. If they are correct I will
instruct them to copy each list in their notebooks. This is also how I will assess their ability to complete
the activity.
E. CLEAN-UP
After the students finish copying the words in their notebooks then they will be asked to unstack the
blocks and put them back in their bag. This allows the station to be ready for the next group and
minimize clean up efforts.
VIII. DIFFERENTIATION
Although this reading group is already differentiated among the whole first grade, within this middle
level group- there is still a range of abilities. In order to differentiate between the beginners and the
more advanced students, I will provide two levels of difficulties. The students that receive bag #1 will
only have to sort between words with beginning digraphs. While students that I give bag #2 will be
asked to sort the words into four categories- two with beginning digraphs, two with ending digraphs.
This allows each student to receive the adequate amount of challenge.
IX. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT
IT?
Lesson:
I worry that this lesson may be more difficult than I estimate. These students are very intelligent, but
they may get confused with all of the different blocks. To prevent this, I will be walking between the
two groups, assisting whenever I can. I anticipate the biggest problem to be the students initially
recognizing the patterns of how to sort the words.
Behavior:
Since students will be working in groups of 3, behavior problems are likely. I will attempt to control the
situation by reminding students to stay on task. I have chosen to separate the students into two groups
of 3, versus three groups of 2, I feel larger groups will allow for more group cooperation and less
distractions. Having only two groups will make it easier for me to monitor all students participating.
X. REFLECTION
This work reflects the course content because it involves the teaching of phonemes to help
students improve their reading and literacy skills. My students are learning to develop literacy through
reading, but in order to do this they must be able to break words down and understand phonemes.
Digraphs are an important concept within phonemes that we discussed this semester in READ366.
This lesson plan required many teaching methods. When I first considered what would be most
helpful for my students, I planned towards the objective. I observed the topics taught during reading
class and saw the students seemed to need extra assistance in grasping the distinct digraphs. This was
Page
3

Driver- First Grade- John C Myers

why I chose this activity. I thought the Legos would be a great way to incorporate play and learning
because it would keep the students engaged. I wanted to keep the groups small in order to keep the
students focused. Overall, I feel this lesson was planned very well and I felt like a real teacher!
I assessed the students learning by asking them to create a list after completing the sort. As they
worked I continued to check their work and make sure they were stacking the correct words based on
the digraph. The students were very engaged, they loved the chance to play with Legos while learning
simultaneously. I think because they enjoyed the activity, they were motivated. All of the students were
able to complete the word sort. The students who received bag #1 with less digraphs did seem to
require more assistance than those with bag#2. I think this reflects the learning gap. However, I believe
this differentiation was very effective and in the end all the students were able to get the intended
benefits of the activity.
This lesson ran much smoother than previous lessons I have taught in the past. I credit this to
how well I have gotten to know these students over the course of the semester. I knew which students
would require additional assistance and which students would breeze through the activity. The first
lesson I taught for the read aloud was more focused on the unit of seasons than literacy. This lesson, in
comparison, was solely to help the students move towards reading comprehension. I felt much more in
control of the students learning as I was able to design and implement the lesson to directly fit the
students needs. The contrast of the lessons showed me how much I have grown this semester.
I would definitely do this lesson again! I am very pleased with the way it turned out and the
students abilities to sort the words. This is an activity I plan to implement in my future classroom some
day. I would love to take it a step further and allow the students to actually build words using digraphs.
This would entail writing one or two letters per Lego and allowing the students to connect the blocks
and make vocabulary words containing the digraphs. I feel my students work shows that they would be
able to achieve this.

Page
4