Upper Key Stage 2 LESSON PLAN
Use Beyond the Book as a flexible lesson guide with a variety of options from which to choose based on your pupil's interests and ability levels.
Beyond the Book…provides ideas for educators to incorporate character development into the daily classroom curriculum. Activity and learning ideas are given for Reading/Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies/History and Art.
Science History Maths Art
Beyond the Book…provides educators with a range of open-ended questions aimed at helping pupils share and listen to create meaningful connections to character traits and enhance critical thinking, speaking and listening skills through facilitated guided discussion.
Speaking & Listening
Social & Emotional Learning
Beyond the Book…provides educators with a range of specific reading skill activities aligned with literacy standards to create meaningful connections to character traits and enhance critical thinking, reading, writing, and research skills through various learning activities.
Reading Writing Research
Beyond the Book…provides educators with a menu of engaging activities for primary school pupils with different preferences for learning and communicating information. These activities can be easily modified or adapted for children of many ages, maturity levels and academic ability levels.
Differentiation
Beyond the Book…provides teachers with learning activities and discussion prompts for pupils to share with their parents and guardians at home to reinforce character traits, promote positive family interactions, and to provide ways to keep parents and guardians connected to the classroom.
Home
Activity
Connection
The intent of this story is to show children the following truths:
Commitment is finishing what we start. Commitment is doing what you said you would do no matter how you feel about doing it. You should be committed to your friends and family by helping them in any way you can.
Basic Story Vocabulary
outreach elections brood waddled journey pupil council impeccably incubate diligently excavate moulted candidates clutch campaigns awe rookery shrugged
Time and Order
Create a story map of words and pictures to retell 5 – 10 events of the story in the order in which they occurred. Be sure to include the moral of the story. Highlight the beginning of your story map in green, the middle of your story in yellow, and the end in red to show your understanding of the beginning, middle, and end.
Retell the story using a Flow Map or Chain of Events Map to identify the main events in the story. K-2 cut out the events from the story provided by your teacher and glue them in sequential order onto a piece of construction paper.
Explain how Simon's view or opinion of being president had changed from the time he won to the end of the story. Create a trifold showing Simon at the beginning of the story, in the middle of the story (when he had doubts about his commitment), and at the end of the story. Add words in each tri-fold area to describe Simon's commitment during each time period.
Pepe explained how he and Perla were committed to their eggs. Using a poster board, create a collage of pictures and words that exemplify commitment. What would commitment look like? What are things we do in our daily lives that show commitment? Use newspapers, magazine pictures, or your own drawings to complete your collage.
Simon promised many changes for his school if he wins the election. Draw a picture of what your new school would look like after all the changes that you would make within your school. Write a speech to go with your drawing to convince your peers to vote for you.
Trace the penguin pattern provided by your teacher. Then trace the three smaller fish patterns. On the penguin, identify the main idea of the story. Identify the three supporting details that correlate or support the main idea of the three fish. You may glue the fish as if they're swimming in water around the penguin or glue them to a piece of string as if the penguin is Pepe who had caught the fish for the family.
Facilitated Discussion Prompts
What did Simon's teacher mean by saying, "I hope you're running for the right reasons?
Simon was excited at first as he won the election. Once he met with the principal, he was felt terrible. What was it that made him change the way he felt?
Why do the candidates have to give a speech?
What did Perla the penguin mean when she told Simon they were "committed" to each other? What would happen to the penguin's eggs if their parents were not committed to taking care of them?
General Comprehension Activities
Write to retell the story using transitional words first, next and last.
Write an informational paper on how you can demonstrate commitment.
Write about a commitment you made and how you felt throughout the commitment phases. Were you like Simon? How did your commitment turn out, and what did you learn from the experience? Write your story.
Would you like to be the president of the United States? Write to explain why or why not and what the president's commitment should be like to the American people.
Write to explain how you are "committed" to your family and friends.
Curriculum Connections
Pupil council had created a plan to raise money for their outreach program. Create a plan for a fundraiser to improve your school's campus. Include reasons for the fundraiser (purpose), the product you're selling, and the cost of the product.
Create maths word problems (addition/subtraction of distance and time) that have to do with penguins raising their young. For example- the first incubation shift was 20 days. How many hours did they incubate their eggs in the 20 days? Perla travelled 500 kilometres to find food. How many feet is that?
Research more about the homes of these penguins. Create a PowerPoint to highlight their habitats. Compare and contrast people and penguins and how they are committed to returning to their homes and mates as part of the presentation.
Using 2-litre bottles, create a penguin by painting the bottle black. Use a Styrofoam ball as the head. (glue eyes, arms, and feet optional). On a piece of white paper, write one thing you want to be "committed" to in your life. Glue this onto the penguin's stomach once the paint has dried.
Create a slogan for penguins about commitment. Use your commitment slogan in a commercial encouraging other people to be more committed to each other. Record your commercial and show it to the class. Younger children can do this activity as a class.
Writing Prompts
As a class, review your classroom helper jobs. Talk about job descriptions and how details in a job description promote commitment to doing the job well. Create a Help Wanted posting in pairs and write a job description for one of the classroom helpers' jobs.
Adopt a Buddy Class at your school. Decide what your class will commit to doing to support your Buddy Class (read books out loud, teach them something, etc.) As a class, create a schedule to meet with your Buddy Class. Make sure you follow through with the Buddy Class and help wherever possible. Choose a buddy activity that allows pupils to follow through individually as planned. This will give them an experience with a commitment to others.
Talk about commitments and why everyone has them at school, at home, and community. As a class, create a table by listing your commitments at school, at home, and in the community. In small groups or pairs, divide a piece of drawing paper into three sections. Label and draw a picture that depicts one of each of those kinds of commitments.
As a class, decide on a plant you can grow from seed. Divide into pairs, plant the seeds, and talk about how farmers (and you) will need to commit to watching it and take care of it for successful results. List the daily chores needed for successful growth and create a commitment chart for the project.
Think about your commitments to your family, friends, and neighbours. Commitment is shown through our consistent actions. This builds trust between people and makes their relationships strong. Write a poem describing one of those commitments in detail, including steps you take to show your commitment every day. Create a Commitment Book of the poems to share with a class of younger pupils who may not understand commitment.
SEL Specific Activities
COMMITMENT Home Connection Activities
Write 1-3 sentences to your parents or guardians explaining how you will become more "committed" to helping your family.
Simon's outreach project was to help build an orphanage in Haiti. Think about a project or organisation you and your family can help in your town. Contact the organisation and tell them how you want to help them.
Create a fundraiser with your parents or guardians that you can do in your neighbourhood to raise money for a specific organisation in your town. For examplesell lemonade and give the proceeds (money you made) to a local animal shelter.
Family members show their commitment to each other by doing things for each other, like chores or acts of kindness, without getting paid. What are the contributions of your family members that show they are committed to your family? Make a list and hang it on the refrigerator for all members to be reminded.
WE CONNECTED! We _____________________________________________________________ and talked about____________________________________________________________ together. Our favourite part of the story was when ____________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________. I circled the house above of the activity we completed. Pupil Name:_______________________________________________ Date: __________ Parent/Guardian:_________________________________________ Date: ___________ Copyright © 2019 Cloud9World™ Corp. www.cloud9worlduk.com Cloud9World™ and all related titles, logos, and characters are registered trademarks of Cloud9World™ Corp. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by
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