Elementary Education Program

Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Design Document for Lesson Plan

Name: Megan Mollin & Hannah Colaco

Grade Level: Kindergarten
Concept/Topic: Inclusion
Length of Lesson (in minutes): 20 min

Learning Objectives:

Students will be able to explain the concept of inclusion.

Students will be able to describe a time they felt included in their lives.

K.B.1.1 Identify cultural practices in local communities and around the world.
K.B.1.2 Compare cultural practices of people in local communities and around the world.
K.B.1.3 Summarize stories that illustrate how positive character traits such as empathy,
resilience, and respect, help people contribute to their communities.

Key Tasks/Activities:

Before reading:
- Think all the way back to the first day of Kindergarten! Raise your hand if you felt
nervous or scared to come to school for the first time.
- We’re going to talk about how to make others feel welcome. Let’s look at the front cover.
What similarities or differences do you see between the students? Do any of them look
like you? Are any of them doing something you like to do?
- can be rhetorical
During reading:
- Stop on the page that reads, “You have a space here”. Look at all of the different children
and families. Are they all wearing the same thing? Eating the same food? Do they all
look the same?
- point out key vocabulary words
- Having a community with different kinds of people
After reading:
- What made the classroom in the book so welcoming?
- Look back on pages with vocabulary words and have students make inferences about
their meaning
- think-pair-share with a partner about what “inclusion” examples they can think of (look at
assessments)
- Draw a place where you feel welcome!
- this can be the example they shared with their partner or a different occasion
- Offer the opportunity for students to share their drawings
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Anticipating Students’ Responses:

Students may have had some experience with a lesson about welcoming one another and treating
one another with kindness near the first day of school with their Cooperating Teacher, in a
different academic setting (preschool), or at home. They most likely can anticipate how to be
welcoming and kind to those around them, but may not fully have the knowledge of why it is
important, especially multiculturally. Students may not have been exposed to certain cultures’
facets such as dress, food, etc. We would expect students to already understand welcoming
behaviors, but we would not expect them to be knowledgeable of a wide range of cultural
practices.

Students may respond to prompts by making an immediate connection to their real lives, such as
“the characters are not all dressed the same, kind of like how we are not dressed the same in this
classroom”.

When asked to make an inference about the meaning of a vocabulary word, such as diversity,
students may use context clues, such as the discussion so far about the book, how the word is
used in the sentence, and the pictures surrounding the word.

Responding to Students’ Responses:

Use pictures in the book as a supplement:

What examples of kindness do you see in the pictures?
What are some similarities and differences between the children on the front cover?

Make connections to their classroom, so they can develop further understanding:

What do we do in our classroom to make people feel welcome?
What is one way you have shown kindness in your classroom?

Give students opportunities to verbally explain their thoughts and responses with a long enough
wait time to support them, an opportunity to share their thoughts via drawing, and create an
environment where students are able to share from their own personal experiences (making
connections to the book).

When they are making an inference about a vocabulary word, at the kindergarten level, they may
need extra support by the teacher explicitly pointing out context clues and alluding to the
meaning.

Development of Practices among Students:

Our lesson aims to develop students’ sense of inclusivity and understanding how communities
work together. We also want our students to be able to construct viable arguments and critique
the reasoning of others in a respectful way. Student discourse is important but it is also essential
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

that they understand how to discuss respectfully and not use hurtful or aggressive language when
disagreeing with their peers. We hope that the think-pair-share they participate in and our
supervision throughout will help students communicate effectively and share their ideas
productively. They will also be able to learn and practice inclusivity by collaborating with their
peers and drawing a time when they felt included.

Assessment:

Turn and Talk (while roaming around the room to listen in on student responses and offering
support where needed).
- What was one way in which the teacher in the book made sure all of her students felt
welcome in their classroom?
- What is one way you (students) and/or your teachers have made everyone feel welcome in
your classroom?
- If students are able to mention both an effective example from the book and an effective
strategy for how to make others feel welcome in real life.

Drawings (ask for volunteers to share with class & roam around and discuss with students about
their drawings)
- Either in a one-on-one conversation, or while sharing with the class, a student will
exemplify if they have met the learning objectives by sharing their personal sentiment
about a time/place when/where they felt included and effectively share the meaning of
inclusion.

Vocabulary/Language Function:

● Inclusion: the practice or state of making something a part of a whole or group

● Diversity: the practice or quality of including a variety of people from different ethnic
groups, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic statuses
● Hope: a feeling of trust and desire for something to happen
● Community: a group of people that share at least one common characteristic (location,
goals, etc).

● Compare: conclude the similarity or dissimilarity between two things

● Explain: make a concept clear by describing it with sufficient and accurate detail

Classroom Management Plan:

- We will start with an engaging book so our students will want to pay attention. Before
starting all activities, we will clearly outline the expectations for each one, like how we
want them to respond to our questions and how to talk to their classmates. We plan to use
callbacks like “class, class” (they respond “yes, yes”) and clapping (they have to clap the
same pattern we model first) to bring students back from independent work, think pair
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

share, and/or if volume levels get too loud. We also plan to provide scaffolding through
giving students guided questions and outlining everything they need to do for each
section of the lesson. If things get too chaotic, we will continue to stay calm and
transition to a new part of the lesson to re-engage our kindergarteners.