When teaching first graders, it is vital that all activities are developmentally appropriate and have elements that are able to increase a student’s motivation. Including creative elements, such as art and music, are valuable to a student’s learning because it can help a student grow both academically and developmentally. Helping children grow by pushing them to continue to think on a deeper level will be beneficial to these students in their futures, and this lesson plan focuses on many of these elements.
Piaget’s cognitive stages of development state that a first grader would be in the preoperational stage of development (Ormrod, Anderman, & Anderman, 2017). This is the stage of development in which a child’s language continues to mature and has shown significant growth from the previous stage, the sensorimotor stage. Children at this age will be on the border of the next stage, the concrete operations stage, and in some areas, may exhibit some of these characteristics common in the concrete operations stage. These stages are not completely independent of each other, so students will probably be more or less developed in different areas. It will be important to ensure that these more advanced students are still challenged, and do not find the work too simple. An example of an accommodation that may be made for the more advanced students is to have them write a sentence that describes their art.
This lesson will also continue to help all students grow in their language development. One example of an activity that will assist in the children’s growth is the discussion. While asking these students questions out loud and having the children answer these questions out loud, they are working on their ability to communicate their own ideas. Imagination and creativity are also important aspects of Piaget’s theory, and these things continue to develop in the preoperational and the concrete operations stages of development. This lesson plan allows the children to think creatively when making their art, and gives them the opportunity to think about real-life situations, such as things they do on a daily basis. These things fall in the zone of proximal development for my students because they are beginning to use the skills and have not yet mastered these different ideas. The teacher may need to prompt or guide students, but it will be important for students to reach conclusions by thinking for themselves.
According to Erikson’s eight stages of psychological development, children in first grade would be in the industry versus inferiority stage (Ormrod et al., 2017). Erikson proposed that children in this stage are more likely to accomplish tasks if they have been praised for their work previously by peers, parents, or teachers. This is one reason that praising students’ art and answers will be very important in this lesson. If a student feels as though their work is not being appreciated, or is being critiqued, the student will feel a sense of inferiority (Ormrod et al., 2017). This sense of inferiority can cause a child to lose motivation to continue to accomplish tasks. The TARGETS theory of motivation states that the amount of recognition a student receives, both about social and academic successes, can directly affect their motivation (Ormrod et al., 2017). Sharing artwork with peers is one way that this lesson plan can help to ensure that a student does not feel a sense of inferiority.
Linguistic characteristics of children aged six or seven includes the idea of the students knowing what being a “good listener” means. This is very important for the environment in the classroom. Students should be aware of classroom rules, such as raising their hand before answering questions, sitting quietly while others are talking, and listening to any specific rules for the activities in the lesson. One way to assist students in continuing to grow in this portion of their development is to have classroom rules posted around the classroom. It may be best to have these rules posted with pictures so that all students, even those that are not comfortable with reading, can recognize the different classroom rules. In this lesson, students are being asked to sit quietly while the class is discussing the story. This may be very difficult for some students, so gentle reminders from the teacher may be necessary. This is in the students’ zone of proximal development because the students are not able to complete this task without guidance from the teacher.
Students in this age group are also developing in their ability to tell stories, and their vocabulary is continuing to grow. Through reading a story and allowing the students to create their own art and later describe it to the class, both of these skills are being practiced. Reading the story and having the students sing the lyrics while tracking the words can help with their reading skills. Giving the children the guidelines when creating the artwork allows them to think creatively, but also helps them to organize their thoughts. This developmentally appropriate task allows the children to tell a short narrative and to practice recognizing the elements of a story.
One reason that this lesson plan includes several elements of singing and movement is that it can be extremely beneficial to students. Iwasaki, Rasinski, Yildirim, & Zimmerman (2013) explore the many benefits of bringing music into a literature lesson. This article suggests that singing while having a visual display of the words, like singing parts of the book with the words displayed on a screen, can be beneficial to new readers. This is because when students are singing, they are also tracking the words on the page and this is a form of reading. Even if the students still struggle with reading the words without the melody, they are still working on recognizing sight words, words that are memorized. Another benefit of including music into a literature lesson is that singing and music often brings children a sense of joy or excitement. If music and literature are taught together, the children can associate these feelings of joy with reading and this may motivate students to read more often. This also may change a young students’ self-efficacy, their perceived ability to complete a task (Ormrod et al., 2017). When young children recognize that they have sung a lengthy song, this can cause the students to feel a sense of accomplishment, which can also motivate the students to continue to work towards the goal of reading. It is a type of intrinsic motivation because they feel joy from completing the task and would like to complete a similar task to feel the same joy (Ormrod et al., 2017).
Integrating music into lessons has the ability to encourage student growth both developmentally and academically. Incorporating music can help the students build their vocabulary and their reasoning skills, and can also help the students to remain engaged during a long lesson. Rhythm also helps students with memorization. Learning music strengthens the area of the brain that is also used for processing language, which is one reason that this lesson plan includes music with the reading (Kent State University, 2017). Music in the classroom can build a sense of community, and this can be very helpful for the classroom environment. Music also involves creativity and imagination, which is very important for young students and has also been shown to help with deeper level cognitive processes, such as critical thinking and literary analysis (Kent State University, 2017).
This lesson has multiple ways that information is presented. Gifted students are being challenged in this lesson by being asked to write a sentence describing their artwork. Adaptations to this lesson can also be made for students with specific learning challenges. One example of a student that may require some adaptations is a student with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). These students often have trouble sitting still, following classroom expectations, and can have trouble with impulse control. Approximately 9.4% of children 2-17 years of age have been diagnosed with AD/HD, so it is very common in many schools (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). Having the rules posted around the classroom and keeping the child engaged in the lesson will be very important. One way to keep this child engaged is to make sure that the teacher calls on the student at least once during the discussion if they know the answer. Praising this student will also be very important so if I notice that he/she is following the rules very well, the teacher should praise them either quietly or in front of the class (depending on the attitude of the student) because some students may enjoy being praised in front of peers, but others may find it embarrassing so it is important to know the student’s preferences.
In the classroom, it is important to encourage student interaction, but to also decrease distractions (Ormrod et al., 2017). For this reason, posters on the walls will not be in the area of the classroom where most instruction takes place. Rules posters will be posted in several places in the classroom. This lesson plan also focuses more on mastery of material rather than performance. This means that this lesson is focused primarily on increasing competence about this subject rather than the students having to show complete competence (Ormrod et al., 2017). This is important because it focuses on the students having a growth mindset rather than believing that their intelligence is fixed (Ormrod et al., 2017). Also, mastery of material often promotes a deeper level of processing whereas performance goals tend to promote surface-level processing (Ormrod et al., 2017). The teacher should be focusing more on the growth of individual students rather than a letter grade.
This lesson focused primarily on the TARGETS style of motivation. The tasks I used in this lesson were more authentic, not traditional. This lesson had some autonomy. This is shown in the portion of the lesson when I allowed the students to create their own art and pick the things that they would draw. Recognition in this classroom would be task-specific and focused more on growth rather than complete correctness. This lesson had both individual and whole class work. Group collaboration would also be encouraged when the students were creating their character, setting, and the character’s action in their artwork. Evaluation in this lesson would be focused on growth and the group discussions. The timing of this lesson can be adjusted if necessary. During this lesson, it would be important to show enthusiasm, confidence in student abilities, and the teacher should make themselves available to students for questions throughout the lesson. These aspects have to do with the social support in a classroom.
Overall, this lesson plan focused on maintaining a developmentally appropriate level of thinking for young children. Integrating music and art was beneficial in the students’ motivation and self-efficacy. The social support in the classroom was also a vital part of this lesson, and this was shown through enthusiasm and confidence in student abilities. A focus on growth rather than performance was emphasized in this lesson, which can ultimately lead to a deeper level of thinking in these students.