Writing Activity Plans
An activity plan is an essential tool for every teacher to utilize. It harnesses the teacher’s capabilities and the students’ needs to allow effective content delivery according to prescribed guidelines. Teachers use an activity plan as an instrument to amplify their confidence. Confidence is one of the teacher’s most essential traits (Capp, 2018). An activity plan also allows content coverage within a reasonable timeframe and allows extra time for focusing on students having a difficult time achieving education goals.
The primary purpose of the activity plan, in this case, was to introduce children to the essential elements of visual art. The teacher intends to engage children in activities designed to achieve this goal. The teacher should follow the activity plan tailored to accommodate the children and their needs (Bowen & McPherson 2017). The purpose of the activity plan is evident in the goals set. Children should respond to design, lines, and texture. The teacher plans to deliver these concepts by merely focusing on one element at a time. Furthermore, the content section contains definitions of these terms, plus additional information on the materials that the students will need. The activity introduces children to elements of visual art in the most effective way.
The plan could benefit from better timing and sequencing of activities. The benefit arises because the schedule of events ensures that the time provided will always be sufficient (Fujii, 2019). More so, it allows a teacher to set aside time to revisit problem areas and bring students facing difficulties up to speed. Also, the plan requires more commitment to secure participation beyond the evaluation. The activity will be more enjoyable to the children and improve the speed of achieving learning objectives (Fujii, 2019). The teacher must ensure that students are willing to learn new concepts and to add to their collection of knowledge. Engaging the students is essential to stimulate their understanding and curiosity.
Activity Plan for Second Grade Children
The following is an activity plan for second-grade children to meet California Language standards in speaking and listening. The goal is to ensure that students can present knowledge and ideas.
Activity name: Storytime with friends
Goal: The students shall tell a story of an elaborate event with details, a logical sequence, and a conclusion.
Content: Details are small pieces of information about something that creates ideas in our minds. Logical sequence refers to the arrangement of events in a way that makes sense. A conclusion is how the story ends. You can add what the story means to you here.
Materials: The teacher can arrange chairs in circles for every group to allow children to tell their stories to the groups that they have created.
Procedure: After dividing up the children into groups, the teacher will ask the children to take turns telling stories for three or four minutes while other group members listen. The teacher will go around listening to the children as they engage with each other. The children will tell each other stories that they remember or can imagine.
Simplification: Explain what components of the story the children need to include. The teacher should remind the children to listen also to the stories of their group members.
Evaluation: What stories did they tell and what stories do they remember from their peers? Did their stories contain all the components of a story?
The Contributions of the Plan’s Components to the Purpose
The activity plan above should allow the teacher to focus on developing the speaking and listening skills of the students. It intends to achieve this by providing a course of action to ensure that a student has the skills needed to tell a story effectively. Children should be able to listen to a story and understand the details, the sequence of events, and the conclusion, which is the point of the story. The goal is to enhance speaking and listening skills in children. All aspects of the plan should work towards the use and improvement of these skills.
The content of the activity plan contributes to the achievement of the goals set. It contains definitions of the terms logical sequence, details, and conclusion. These definitions should help the child examine their own stories and those of their friends. They should look for these components of a story in their friends’ narrations. At the same time, they should be able to incorporate them into their own stories. When a student can do both of effectively, they have achieved the goals and met the standards set.
Outlining a procedure to be followed throughout the activity is crucial because it ensures that planning is more effective, and potential problems can be averted. The process allows the teacher to be strategic and to design the activity with the teaching goals and set standards in mind. When a teacher aligns the procedure to the purposes of the lesson, the learners stand to gain the most and meet teaching objectives. In this case, the process determines how students will follow a set of instructions to improve their speaking and listening skills.
Considering the tools, the teacher will require to deliver their objectives will allow proper planning ahead of the activity (Williams & Berber, 2017). The teacher can improve their effectiveness by acquiring the materials beforehand and then prepare those that require extra work. For the above case, the learners will benefit from a prior arrangement of class furniture to allow groups to work effectively. Also, the teacher should place the students into groups before the activity to save time. The teacher avails the materials for use before the activity, ensuring that they avoid possible problems that may hinder the attainment of goals.
An evaluation of the children following the activity will include questions on how their experience during the activity was. The teacher’s aim with questions is to identify problem areas that may have prevented some of the students from meeting the objectives of the activity (Williams & Berber, 2017). Based on the plan above, the teacher can find out whether children can communicate ideas and events effectively. Effective communication is an essential aspect of their speaking and listening skills.
Simplification is a way of anticipating problems during content delivery. It suggests possible solutions to these challenges. Simplifying the delivery of content extends inclusion to even students who might have trouble grasping the core concepts, ensuring no one is left behind.
References
Bowen, W. G., & McPherson, M. S. (2017). Lesson plan: An agenda for change in American higher education (Vol. 90). Princeton University Press.
Capp, M. J. (2018). Teacher confidence to implement the principles, guidelines, and checkpoints of universal design for learning. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1-15.
Fujii, T. (2019). Designing and adapting tasks in lesson planning: A critical process of lesson study. In Theory and Practice of Lesson Study in Mathematics (pp. 681-704). Springer, Cham.
Williams, A., & Berber, J. (2017). Lesson Plan 4: Little Cloud.