Teacher___Katia Leon______________ Grade Level____Kindergarten_________

Morning Meeting / Calendar Time

I. Content & Standards:

CC.1.1.K.B
Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print. Follow
words left to right, top to bottom, and page by page. Recognize that spoken words are
represented in written language by specific sequences of letters. Understand that
words are separated by spaces in print. Recognize and name all upper and lower case
letters of the alphabet.
CC.1.5.K.A
Participate in collaborative conversations with peers and adults in small and larger
groups.
CC.1.5.K.D
Share stories, familiar experiences, and interests speaking clearly enough to be
understood by all audiences using appropriate volume.
CC.1.5.K.G
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English when speaking based
on kindergarten level and content.
CC.16.2.K.A1
Interact with peers and adults in a socially acceptable manner.
CC.2.1.K.A.1
Know number names and write and recite the count sequence.
CC.2.1.K.A.2
Apply one-to-one correspondence to count the number of objects.
CC.2.1.K.A.3
Apply the concept of magnitude to compare numbers and quantities.
CC.2.1.K.B.1
Use place value to compose and decompose numbers within 19.
CC.2.4.K.A.4
Classify objects and count the number of objects in each category.
CC.3.3.K.A5
Record daily weather conditions using simple charts and graphs Identify seasonal
changes in the environment. Distinguish between types of precipitation.

II. Prerequisites:
 Students must have grade-appropriate knowledge of the calendar, number identification
and writing building sets, counting with 1 to 1 correspondence, building the number with
place value blocks, students can in school, color and letter patterns, weather graphs,
number sense, and sight words.

III. Instructional Objectives

After the lesson, students will be able to demonstrate effective communication and
social skills in a group setting, understanding of daily procedures, chart changes in
weather, skip count by 10s, use a calendar, and linear and sequential order of
numbers.

IV. Instructional Procedures:

1. Start the lesson by getting the student’s attention and singing the Good Morning Song.
2. Review the greeting (Nihao) and greet all the students and cooperating teacher.
3. Give the day’s announcements, including classroom jobs and daily schedule.
4. Review the Days of the Week by singing the Days of the Week song and asking students: What
day was yesterday? What is today? What will tomorrow be?
5. Next recite the Months of the Year. Verify students’ understanding of sequential order by asking
what months comes after January.
6. Introduce the new month calendar pattern for the Month of February. What is the pattern for
January? Letter pattern? Color pattern? Day of the month pattern – introduce and predict our
pattern for the month of February.
7. Days in School – review what day of school was yesterday, and what number comes next? What
numbers do you need to write 107? What color paper square do we need? Why that color? Use
the calendar helper and have students repeat the responses. As a whole group counts to 107 by
skip counting by tens to 100 and by ones to 107.
Next review the place value chart for days in school and have the calendar helper explain what
to do to update our chart. Then as a whole group review amounts in place value and read the
number.
8. Next have the class meteorologist look at the weather and update the weather graph and chart.
Show the students that we restarted the graph for the month of February. Recite as a whole
group The Four Seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, What’s your favorite one of all?
9. Transition into Kid Writing.

V. Materials and Equipment: List all materials and equipment to be used by both the
teacher and learner and how they will be used.

 Calendar
 Days in School Charts
 Weather Graph
 Days of the Week and Months of the Year Chart
  Classroom jobs Chart
VI. Assessment/Evaluation: Describe how you will determine the extent to which
students have attained the instructional objective. Be sure this part is directly
connected to the behavior called for in the instructional objective.

The objective will be measured by the students’ engagement and response to the morning
meeting and calendar time routines. It will also be measured by the responses of the
assigned students during Calendar and Weather procedures.

VII. Differentiation
This section should include examples for students with disabilities and English
Language Learners (ELLs). Be sure to include individualized activities and discuss
how other activities/materials will be used to reinforce and extend this lesson and for
whom. Include homework, assignments, and projects.

Students with IEPs will have the assistance of both the Mentor Teacher and an aide
during this time. I will provide additional time to respond to students that require it, and
provide direct assistance the students that struggle to respond to my questions.

VIII. Self-Assessment
Determine here how you plan to collect information that will be useful for planning
future lessons. A good idea is to analyze the difference between what you wanted (the
objective) and what was attained (the results of the assessment).

Informal assessment will be the primary tool to collect information for planning future
lessons and adjusting this lesson. Observations and anecdotal notes of language and
understanding based on students’ responses to routines.

Reflection on Video Lesson

I have learned so much thus far in my Student Teaching experience. Every lesson allows

the educator to learn from the lesson plan and instruction. After teaching this lesson, I met with

my mentor teacher and discussed the areas of success and improvement. After watching the

recording of the lesson, I was able to identify other areas of improvement, as well. I believe the

lesson plan, the content of the lesson, resources, and materials are great for teaching the lesson’s

goal: After the lesson, students will be able to demonstrate effective communication and social

skills in a group setting, understanding of daily procedures, chart changes in weather, skip count

by 10s, use a calendar, and linear and sequential order of numbers. All the morning meeting and
calendar time routines have been established since the beginning of the year by my Mentor

Teacher. Because of this, there are not a lot of changes I could make during this time since I

didn’t want to disrupt any of the routines in place or confuse the students. Nonetheless, I have

been able to determine what I would do differently in my own classroom someday.

I recorded this lesson just a few days before I left my placement and after only a week of

starting to take over instruction. My first takeover was for Kid Writing and Morning

Meeting/Calendar time was the second area I took over. I had a discussion with my Site Director,

Dr. Stutzman, and with my Mentor Teacher, Miss Long, where I expressed my concern about

how much I was able to do in this placement since there are so many routines in place.

Kindergarten students thrive with routines, and changing any of these would have been

disruptive and confusing. My mentor teacher also follows a scripted curriculum in most of the

areas of instruction and had taught students since the beginning of the school year to respond in

choral responses during instruction. Because of this, I found it hard to try new teaching strategies

that might have improved student engagement. Except for Kid Writing (which only has about 5

minutes of actual instruction) and Centers, Kindergarten teachers in the school follow the

curriculum and scripted instructional procedures for Phonics and Phonemic Awareness, Reading,

and Math.

The routines in place for Morning Meeting and Calendar Time call for choral responses

and whole-group participation, and for specific areas where students rotate (Calendar Helper,

Meteorologist, etc.). All these routines were carefully designed to help students practice and

demonstrate understanding of some areas like calendar, weather, number sequence, graphing,

patterns, etc. Students enjoy this morning’s meeting and are actively engaged during this time.
Because there are so many classroom jobs, students get to practice in the assigned areas very

frequently. I have wondered how I could improve this time with the students, and I would add

some Social and Emotional Learning during the meeting where we can have a short classroom

discussion with a specific topic and allow the opportunity for students to share and discuss

during this time.

As far as instruction there are a few areas of improvement. For starters, I was still relying

on my Mentor Teacher to complete some of the areas of the morning meeting. I should have

asked her in the morning for any announcements so I would have also taken over that area and

had complete control during that time. I also could have tried a few total participating strategies

like having some of the students discuss with their neighbors what day of the week it was before

asking them to share. We typically use this strategy when we go over our calendar pattern but

couldn’t use it at this time since we were introducing a new pattern for the month. I also noticed

that while I am having the ‘calendar helper’ assist with the days in the school chart, the other

students were losing focus. At that time, I could have asked a question to the whole group, like

what are all the colors in our chart, for example. Finally, I noticed that I called the weather graph

a chart. This most likely confused the students, and it is also the wrong terminology to use.

Students need to know the correct term to be able to understand and determine the reason behind

that routine.

This lesson was a great example of putting into practice Domains 1, Planning and

Preparation, and Domain 2, The Classroom Environment, of Danielson’s Domains. Morning

meetings and calendar time require great planning and preparation before the school year starts

to ensure that you follow curriculum and content requirements as well as use this time to
introduce and practice important content and skills. This time also requires the classroom to have

a clear display and organization of the materials that will be used during that time and for

students to be able to refer to them during the day. Morning meetings are also a great space and

time for students to be able to interact with the teacher and their peers and demonstrate they have

a clear understanding of appropriate social behaviors and classroom rules. Morning meetings and

calendar time cover many different areas of content and standards and it’s a great tool for

instruction and classroom management.

My goal after this lesson is to utilize the resources more to make my lesson more fun and

engaging. I also need to keep up the pace and find the balance of moving along with the lesson to

ensure student engagement and participation, particularly the whole group engagement while I

allow the assigned students to complete their areas. This lesson also gave me a great

understanding of the importance of this time in kindergarten, and the importance of having not

only the right materials to use, but also establishing routines from the beginning of the school

year to ensure that all areas are covered during this time. Whenever I made any mistakes or

changed any areas of the routines, students were quick to correct me or show me what I made

differently. This shows how comfortable they are and how well they know the routines and

procedures in their classroom.

This was a great exercise to review my instruction, not only from the perspective of my

mentor teacher and site director but also from my own point of view as I reviewed the recording.

There is always room for growth and improvement. And I look forward to using what I learned

during this exercise to continue growing as an educator.