This past Wednesday, I gave a cause and effect lesson plan to my first graders. I came into this thinking this was a pretty tough topic for first graders to grasp. My CT is departmentalized, so we see two sets of students a day teaching reading, writing, and social studies. I was scheduled to be observed by my supervisor for the second set of kids, so I did a dry run with the first set of kids; it went terrible!
The lesson consisted of a read aloud of the book If you take a Mouse to School and an activity called "Scoot." The read aloud, I thought went great; they were engaged, answering questions and it just felt right. The Scoot activity I think was a little too much for them. They were partnered up and a card with a cause and effect question was put on every other desk. Each group starts at a card and have about two minutes per card to answer the question. Once two minutes was up, they were instructed to move to the next card counter clockwise.
After the game not going well, I spoke to my supervisor about it. He suggested that I not give them the freedom of moving around. Instead, just have them at their seats with their partners, and questions over the Elmo. I took his advice and did this setup with the other class and it went much smoother! I was very defeated when it didn't go well for the first group, but with a little reconstruction to the planning, it went well.
The lesson consisted of a read aloud of the book If you take a Mouse to School and an activity called "Scoot." The read aloud, I thought went great; they were engaged, answering questions and it just felt right. The Scoot activity I think was a little too much for them. They were partnered up and a card with a cause and effect question was put on every other desk. Each group starts at a card and have about two minutes per card to answer the question. Once two minutes was up, they were instructed to move to the next card counter clockwise.
After the game not going well, I spoke to my supervisor about it. He suggested that I not give them the freedom of moving around. Instead, just have them at their seats with their partners, and questions over the Elmo. I took his advice and did this setup with the other class and it went much smoother! I was very defeated when it didn't go well for the first group, but with a little reconstruction to the planning, it went well.