Early Childhood Education

Learning Experience Template

Name: Lauren Halsey Lesson Title: Get Your Groove On!

Date: 3/15/24 Grade Level: Preschool Circle one: ECE PKSN
Standard(s)/Guideline(s):
● DOMAIN Physical Development and Wellness: STRAND Wellness - TOPIC 2.f.) Demonstrates increasing understanding of safety practices and
behaviors.
○ Derived from the Ohio Early Learning Standards.
Standard(s)/Guideline(s):
● DOMAIN Social and Emotional Development: STRAND Relationship Skills - TOPIC 4.c.) Develops ability to use simple strategies to resolve conflicts with
peers.
○ Derived from the Ohio Early Learning Standards.
Pre-assessment of current knowledge:
● I plan to observe the students during free time/play time: I will look for their ability to engage with the environment and their peers in safe ways, along with
their ability to resolve any conflicts that may arise between themselves and their peers.

Instructional Objectives (1-2) Assessment of Student Learning Learning Experience

One/Two Assessed Instructional
Objective(s): The student will be
able to...
● …engages in safe
behaviors when practicing
and performing their
dance.
● …uses strategies to solve
conflicts with peers.
One Assessed Developmental
Skill:
● Students will be assessed
on their gross motor
abilities.
○ As students
engage in these
big/whole body
movements while
they dance, they
will be showcasing
their abilities
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Identify Evidence: (What will you collect or record as data
to demonstrate students have met your objective(s) and
skill?)
● Anecdotal notes will be collected as evidence of
student learning. As students are practicing their
dance, I will observe their conversations, paying
close attention to conflicts & solutions. I will also
observe their actions, ensuring they’re exercising
safe movements - movements that harm none and
remain within a designated space. Furthermore, I
will observe and take notes on their gross motor
abilities.
Program Monitoring: (How will you aggregate or compile
your evidence into a class or group view?)
● I will make a bar graph that includes the objectives
and how many students were able to meet those
objectives. If 20% or more of the students do not
meet the objective, I will reteach the lesson by
having us design a dance as an entire class. This
Academic Language:
● Dance (movement)
● Choreograph (creatively craft a dance & practice it)
● Perform (present to audience)
● Collaborate (work together)
Procedural steps:
● I will begin by having students join me at the
carpet/reading section of the classroom.
● When they arrive, I will ask students if they like to
dance. Once they respond, I plan to ask them
when/where they dance and how they dance.
● Once this conversation engages students, I will tell
them they will have 10 minutes to choreograph (I will
substitute this term to explain it) a dance with a
group. I will remind them that after they design and
practice this short dance, they will perform it to their
peers.
 Early Childhood Education
Learning Experience Template

surrounding will allow me to model compromise and the art of
balance, dance (choreography & performance) for my
coordination, students, clearing up any misconceptions.
spatial awareness,
and skeletal
strength.
Differentiation:
● Students who are unable to stand without support
(students in wheelchairs for example) will still be
able to participate. They can move their arms/hands
during the dance, and their teammates can move
Safety Considerations: their wheelchair around to go along with the dance.
● If students are having trouble keeping their bodies
safe, physical markers will be used to separate
● Students should keep groups from one another & the audience: This visual
space between themselves prompt allows students to better internalize spatial
and the audience to avoid boundaries.
collisions & pain. ● Students who are more prone to inappropriate social
● Conflicts should be interactions due to a disability will have appropriate
resolved through words behaviors modeled for them, including language.
NOT physical aggression. They may be instructed to use replacement
behaviors at the onset of a dangerous one.
○ While sitting on the carpet, I will assign
groups: There is no method, simply who is
around one another & what makes most
sense number wise (assuming it will be
groups of 3 or 4).
● Once students are grouped, they will be tasked with
finding a safe space to work.
● I will set a timer for 10 minutes, and students will be
instructed to design/choreograph their dance.
○ I will walk around the room as students work,
assessing objectives through anecdotal
notes.
■ I may also ask scaffolding questions
to students that encourage
metacognition.
● Once the timer goes off, students will return to the
carpet, and one by one each group will perform their
dance.
○ The groups who are not performing must
watch those that are.
● Once every group has performed, I will ask students
to share one thing they each learned about dance or
choreography/performance.

Authentic Materials: (Describe authentic real-life, hands-on

materials.)

● Timer

Adult Roles:
● It is the adults’ job to ensure students are meeting
safety considerations (necessary spatial awareness).
● It is the adults’ job to guide students through conflicts
if they begin to turn to aggression by modeling
language.
● It is the adults’ job to assess students.
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 Early Childhood Education
Learning Experience Template

● It is the adults’ job to scaffold students into thinking

about their own thinking when designing the dance.

Resources & References:

None

Reflection: (What have you learned about your students? How will this inform future instruction?)

Typed Below

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 Early Childhood Education
Learning Experience Template

Movement Lesson Plan

My lesson plan did not go as planned, however, I still believe it was beneficial for students. Prior to implementing the lesson (while

brainstorming how things would play out that morning), I ended up changing some things. Logistically, the lesson I had written would not work for

the time frames within the classroom. I did not think about this before writing the plan, as I am used to less time restraints within the classroom. For

instance, at 8 a.m. kids would be entering during the lesson plan, so it didn’t make much sense to implement it before 9 a.m. (breakfast). Breakfast

then lasted until 9:30 a.m., so I didn’t start my plan until 9:40 a.m. I thought we were doing a morning meeting around 10, so I found myself rushing

through my plan. This simply made me feel overwhelmed and less effective as a teacher.

The first thing I decided to change, upon advice that morning from my mentor teacher, was how students were grouped. Rather than

completing the activity as a whole class, I pulled students aside in groups. We had the conversation as a small group; then they practiced their dance

and performed it for me. I filmed this performance, which will later be shown to the class as a whole. I did this for every group, allowing me to have

more instructional control & deeper conversations with each group. Furthermore, when explaining the idea of “choreography” to students, I showed

them a video of kids their age in a zumba class (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymigWt5TOV8). To have students choreograph a dance, I

explained that they must talk with their group about what dance moves they plan to perform. I made sure to note that choreography does not have to

mean everybody doing the same thing: It simply must mean people should be on the same page. Additionally, my mentor teacher suggested I play

part of a song for students to dance to, rather than it being quiet in the background. I chose to have students dance to snippets of “We Don’t Talk

About Bruno” from Encanto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvWRMAU6V-c). Each group danced for 30 seconds on film.

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Learning Experience Template

One thing that surprised me most about my plan was students' inability to communicate with one another. When I gave them time to talk

about their dance/plan what they were going to do, they didn’t really talk: They just stood there waiting to dance. I had to prompt students by asking

them what dance move they planned to do, instructing them to tell that to the group to ensure everyone was on the same page/had a clear plan. It was

clear that the students struggled with social skills & communication.

If I were going to teach this lesson again, I would’ve had a better plan for the timing of everything, relieving stress from me as the teacher. In

my opinion, timing was the biggest weakness of my lesson. I also would practice communication skills with students in smaller activities/settings

with less pressure & importance, allowing students to work up to the skill of devising a plan with a group. Before one can make a plan, they must

have foundational social skills - something that the class did not seem to have. As a result, the choreography portion of this lesson was truly lost, as it

seemed beyond my students’ zone of proximal development - I was scaffolding them the entire way.

From teaching this lesson, I learned how big the divide truly is between grade schoolers and preschoolers (3-5 years). I have never worked

with this age range of students, so attempting to teach them was a wakeup call. I didn’t realize just how small their attention spans were, and how

engaging I had to be to keep them focused on my lesson. I realized that the instructional control I thought I would have, I did in fact not have. I think

this is also due to the way I presented the lesson. Because it seemed very scattered, the students seemed to put less emphasis on its importance: This

showed me how essential it is to be organized as a teacher.

Looking back, I did not modify much of my lesson. This was yet another weakness - something I could have done better. When I saw students

get lost, I did slow down & simplify my directions/explanations. I feel though when I did this, students said they understood, however, it was clear

they did not understand when it was their turn to choreograph/plan. I even had students repeat ideas/explanations back to me to ensure understanding

- there must have been a gap between their knowledge of skills and the application. I do believe that my ability to be flexible was valuable for
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Learning Experience Template

keeping students on track: I did not hesitate to regroup students or scaffold them during the planning process, which allowed them to take more away

from the activity.

Overall, I am not proud of my lesson plan. If I were to do it again, I would change a lot about it (mainly the timing). With that being said,

students enjoyed my lesson plan & were proud with their dances at the end of it. Students were enthusiastic to rewatch their videos and show their

friends. I just feel that students could have learned more from my lesson if I had done it a bit differently. This shows how essential it is to reflect on

lessons to grow as a teacher. There is no drawback from admitting your mistakes and faults, as that honesty will allow your students to learn more

from you as a teacher.

PICTURES (screenshots from videos of dancing)

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Learning Experience Template

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