Component One: Organizational Information

Teacher
Ms. Rae (Julia Semeniuk) Grade
Name(s)
Level(s) Kindergarten
Unit(s) /
Subject
Early Literacy Topic(s) / Gingerbread Unit
Area(s)
Strand (s)
Start/Stop Position
Times + of Lesson
9:25am-10:10am / 45 mins 8
Lesson within
Duration Sequence:
Overarching
Question(s) 1. How can we better understand texts during listening and reading activities?

Component Two: Description and Rationale

This lesson focuses on developing students’ ability to identify which characters are
essential to a story to enhance their understanding of texts. Students will be able to
identify who the main characters in a story are. Students will also use their previous
knowledge and exposure to a variety of texts to support their understanding and
competition of their task. Students will need to recall main characters from previous
texts involving gingerbread.
This lesson is sequenced in three parts, beginning with the morning message of “good
morning story tellers” and a class discussion on what story tellers do with a focus on
characters. After we will take a body break and sing “Five Gingerbread Men”. Then we
Description: will read “Gingerbread Friends” and discuss which characters were essential to the
storyline. Finally, students will discuss and recall which to characters have been most
essential through our gingerbread unit (gingerbread person and fox) and I will explain
the “Must-Do” where students are to colour and cut the fox and gingerbread person and
we will glue them on popsicle sticks to make character puppets.
This lesson builds off books which we have previously read in class which supports
students’ ability to recognize which characters are essential in the story. This lesson also
works toward preparing students to retell the classic folk tale of the gingerbread man.
This is a formative assessment to see if students are able to recall previously read stories
and make connections between the similarities of each story through essential
characters.
By scaffolding student learning through finding similarities in books we have read as a
class, students are set up for success as they attempt to retell a classic folk tale. Students
Rationale:
are not only readers, but they are storytellers and this lesson reinforces this notion for
students.

Component Three: Learner Outcomes

General GLE: The child listens, speaks, reads, writes, views and represents to comprehend and
Learner respond personally and critically to oral, print and other media texts
Outcomes(s)
(GLOs)
1
 (or
equivalent)

Specific
Learner
Outcome(s)  asks questions and makes comments during listening and reading activities
(SLOs)  recalls events and characters in familiar stories read aloud by others
(or  identifies the main characters in a variety of oral, print and other media texts
equivalent)

Component Four: Learning Objective(s) and Assessment Evidence

Students will inquire during listening and reading activities to develop an understanding
of texts and deepen their learning.
Learning
Objective(s) Students will recognize similarities in stories which will support their understanding of
texts.

Students will identify characters which are essential to a story.

Intended
Learning Objective Driving Question(s)
Response(s)
Students will inquire during
1.Who is the main character of this 1.The Gingerbread Baby
listening and reading activities
story?
to develop an understanding of 2. Who is this story about? 2.The Gingerbread Baby
texts and deepen their learning.
Students will recognize 1.Who do you think will win in this 1. Answers will vary
similarities in stories which story?
2.Which two characters are tracking 2. Gingerbread person and Fox
will support their
understanding of texts. with tallies?
Students will identify 2. Gingerbread Man and Fox
1.Which characters are the most
characters which are essential important in the stories we have read?
to a story.

Component Five: Pre-Lesson Preparations

Curriculum Resources Materials and Equipment

 Alberta Kindergarten Program of Studies  Book: “Gingerbread Friends” by Jan Brett
 Pictures of characters
 Popsicle sticks
 Crayons
 Scissors
 Glue
 Media File for “The Five Gingerbread Man”
song

2
 Teacher Tasks
 Photocopying
 Setting materials out
 Gingerbread House envelops to put materials away
 Troubleshooting technologies

Component Six: Body (introduction, activities, closure)

Introduction Time
Allotment
Attention Morning Message: Good Morning Storytellers, what do story tellers do?
Grabber Discuss as a class what story tellers do.
Highlight that storytellers don't always need to write but they can orally tell
a story, by using their voices. Indigenous people use oral storytelling to
pass on knowledge.
Ask: Who does a storyteller talk about? Can they talk about a shark who
5 mins
lost a tooth and but a cat who lived on the moon and a dog who liked to go
on walks all in one story?
Highlight that there needs to be a main character, a character that the story
is all about.
Ask: in our gingerbread unit, who do you think the main character is? Who
or what characters have been the most important?
Description This attention grabber gets students thinking about the topic for the lesson
and and what their role will be during their task. By focusing on how
Rationale storytellers can’t have different stories and multiple main characters,
students will begin to develop a better sense of story and identify which
characters are important.
Time
Activities Allotment
Learning Teacher Cues: 15 mins
Activity #1 Sing: stand on up on a blue spot.
As a class sing the “Five Gingerbread Men” song with actions to take a
body break and practice for when we surprise our families with a video.
Before singing emphasize how gingerbread men stand and that they don’t
fall down.
Sing have a seat on a blue spot.
Read “Gingerbread Friends”
Ask: who do you think this story is about?
Read the title to students and have them read the title page
When the fox appears in the story ask: who do you think will win and why?
Read the book and highlight how we are following one characters story.
After reading discuss who was most important in the story.
Ask: Who was the main character in this story?
Discuss with students who have been the most important characters in our
gingerbread unit.
Ask: which two characters have we been tracking with tallies? Reference
the tally score between the gingerbread person and the fox.
Outline that the gingerbread person is who the story is always about, but the
fox is important because we never know if he will eat the gingerbread
3
 person or not.
Sing: have a seat on the green.
Transition Teacher Cues:
Explain to students that they will be retelling the story of the gingerbread
man as a gift to their parents.
Reference back to how indigenous people use storytelling to pass
knowledge onto others, and we can pass this story to our families by orally
telling them the story and by using props (our puppet characters)
Ask: who is most important in that story?
Have instruction on the message board 1. Color 2. Cut. 3. Glue. Show
students that they will be coloring and cutting a gingerbread man and fox
and we will be making puppets with them. 5 mins
Explain that they need to colour carefully because this is going home as a
present for their family.
Ask: should we scribble? Or should we take our time?
Ask: should the fox be pink? What colour is the fox? Can it be rainbow?
Then demonstrate that students need to cut on the line and then fold their
paper in half. Then they need to show either me or Mrs. Webb and get a
popsicle stick to glue their characters on.
Sing: if you want to be a worker go to work, if you want to be a snacker go
wash your hands.
Learning Students will then either go to work or be a snacker.
Activity #2 Students who are a worker will demonstrate their understanding of the
main characters by coloring in the characters correctly. Students will show
a teacher their colored and cut characters before getting a popsicle stick, so
15 mins
we know their work has been completed correctly.
Students will then fold their paper in half and glue the characters onto the
popsicle sticks.
As students finish, they can either be a snacker or begin centers.
Closure/Cliffhanger Time
Allotment
Assessment As students finish, individually have them discuss who the main characters
of are and why they are important. This is a formative assessment to see if
Learning: students have made connections to gingerbread stories read in class and
assess their sense of story in relation to characters. If students are unclear
as to who the characters are, why they are important, etc. explain and 5 mins
discuss with them how these characters shape the story. (this can be done
by asking questions such as “could this book be about a snake? Could it be
about being on a beach? Etc.,” by asking these questions students will be
able to see which characters a story can/cannot have.