LESSON PLAN

Name: Miss Clark

Date: February 10, 2004

LESSON RATIONALE
New York State Learning Standard & Key Idea:
New York State Standard #4- Science:
Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories
pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical
development of ideas in science.
Key Idea 6:
Plants and animals depend on each other and their physical environment.
Instructional Objectives:
1. Given a data chart, the students will be able to develop a strong knowledge base
of the reasons for how, why and where food chains form with 80% accuracy.
2. After participating in a word chaining exercise, the students will be able to
identify what a consumer, producer, carnivore, herbivore, omnivore,
predator, and prey are with 80% accuracy.
Modifications/Adaptations:
-Worksheets with enlarged print will be available for those students with visual
impairments.
-An FM sound system will be used for students with hearing impairments, and will be
passed around the classroom when in the circle discussion, as well as during
instructional transitions into different areas of the lesson.
Materials: Worksheets (KWLs) Flashcards Markers/crayons Rubrics for assessment

LESSON OPENING
Okay boys and girls, I have a very important question for you today! Can anyone tell
me what a food chain is? Or can anyone give me an example of a food chain? Well,
today we are going to talk about food chains and how important they are to our world,
and I think you will have a lot of fun learning about how and why they are formed in our
environment!

LESSON BODY
Activities:
1. Activating prior knowledge:
-Students will be provided with a worksheet titled Food chains: What do they mean to
you. This worksheet serves as an information inventory for the students.
-The students will be allowed approximately 10 minutes to answer the questions on the
inventory, and then will be gathered into an entire class to help the teacher develop a
class chart displaying what the students of the class KNOW about food chains, and what
they WANT to know about food chains (upon the overhead.)
-After creating a class list, the class and teacher then discuss what important facts about
food chains should be made into a class check list for all of the students to learn, and
then a class check list will be made on the board. The checklist will include the guiding
questions: Why are food chains important to our world?
Where do food chains begin?
How are food chains formed?
2. Creating connections with the key idea of food chains:
-After the class checklist is drawn upon the board in the front of the classroom, the
students are then asked to split up into four vocabulary centers, by counting off by 5s.
-At each center, one of seven words are provided to each group of students and slips of
paper are given to the students for the activity.
The words for each center include: consumer, producer, herbivore,
carnivore, omnivore, predator, and prey.
-As each group of students sits at their respective vocabulary center, the task for the
students is to identify two words that are related to the key word and the teacher will
visit with each group and provide a sample word. For example, for the word producer,
the teacher would come and sit with the group and ask the students to think of a word
that is closely related to the word producer. Some related words the teacher could
suggest would be: plant, green, makes food, etc. After providing each group with
modeled practice, the students are then asked to create 2 words on their own and record
them upon the slips of paper at each center.
-When 5 minutes has gone by, each group of students then switches to the next center,
and this continues until each group has been to each vocabulary center once.
-After all the centers have been visited, the students help collect the slips of paper that are
at each center. Bringing them to the center of the room, the students are then asked to
bring their food chain information worksheets and a pencil to the middle of the room
where the class and teacher will sit together in a large circle to have a discussion about

the words each group related/linked to the key words at each center.
-Some sample prompting questions the teacher could use during this exercise could
include: Why did you choose this word?
Why do you think the words are related?
What about this word reminded you of the key word?
-This activity allows the students to present their reasons for writing the word, and a
chance to defend their reasoning for why they feel each word is connected with each
other. It also serves as an opportunity for the students to write down facts and
information that they learned from the discussion that they may not have had on their
worksheet beforehand.
-As the words are discussed and connected to the key words the teacher and children will
physically bend each slip of paper into rings and then connect the key words and
supporting words together to form a real word chain.
3. Checking for understanding:
-Following the word chaining activity, the students are then asked to return to their seats
and given a flash card upon which they are asked to secretly choose a consumer or
producer and then draw a picture of it on one side of the card. On the opposite side of
the flash card, the student is asked to create some hints for their classmates to guess
what animal it might be. For example, the teacher would model the activity for the
students by choosing a Cheetah. However, the teacher must stress the fact that the
students can use ONLY terms such as consumer, producer, herbivore,
carnivore, and omnivore when writing their clues/hints about their chosen
animal/plant.
-Using the example of the Cheetah, the teacher would then give some hints including
facts similar to: This organism is a carnivore, or This carnivore is known for its
spots, or This predator is also well known for its incredible speed.
-Allowing students 15-20 minutes for this portion of the lesson, have students finish up
on their flash card and clues and have them take turns going around the room presenting
their flash cards to the class. The class will then give the student feedback with their
guesses, as well as if they think the student used the terminology correctly within their
clues.

LESSON CLOSING
Alright boys and girls, you did a terrific job on your flash cards and word chains today!
Lets review what we know about food chains. Who can tell me why they feel that food
chains are important to not only our world, but to us? Who else can tell me where and
how food chains form? I have a good question for you to think about as we wrap up our
talk about food chains: are we part of a food chain? Why or why not? One last question,

will someone share something that they learned from todays lesson that they did not
know before? Okay wonderful!

LESSON FOLLOW-UP
-Ask students to think about creating their own food chains, and ask them what types of
animals/plants they would include in their food chain and why.
-After giving them a moment or two to think about this, ask them to go home and create
their own food chain using pictures from magazines. The requirements for the
assignment include the following: students must create their food chain on a poster that
is big enough for the class to see. The students must make the poster colorful and
interesting, as they will be displayed in the hallway for the school and visitors to see.
The students must also include a written description of what organisms their food chain
includes. This description must include the vocabulary learned and discussed during the
word chaining activity. Finally, the food chain must be labeled with those vocabulary
words, and have a written response answering why they think their food chain is
important.

ASSESSMENT
- A written response for the poster assignment will assess why the students feel their food
chain is important and will in turn, allow the teacher to measure how much the student
applied the information given in class in their response to the question.
-A verbal knowledge inventory will also be taken during the word chaining activity, as
the teacher asks the students to explain why they chose the words they did and what
reminded them that those words were somehow related to the key word.
-The data charts provided to each student will also be collected after the poster
assignment has been turned in, in order to assess if the student was able to create notes
from the discussion held during the word chaining activity. (The What I learned
category will have the objectives included in it.-See hand-out)

RESOURCES
Text: A Handbook of Content Literacy Strategies.
By: Elaine C. Stephens & Jean E. Brown
Fact storming pp. 45
K-W-L pp. 47
Text: Science Stories.
By: Janice Koch
Chapter 8 Sustained Inquiry: Exploration of Living Things pp.165

Text: The Inclusive Classroom.