Grade: 2

Subject:Homophones, synonyms, antonyms

Length of Lesson: 40-50 minutes

Topic/Theme:Homophones/ Voyaging through vocabulary

Objective:

My main objective or goal in the language arts program is to develop independent readers. To enjoy reading to its fullest inside and outside the classroom, young learners must be presented with literature in a positive, encouraging environment that is fun and creative. Whether young students are learning the phonemics, vocabulary, syntactics, or participating in readers theatres, if the main objective is always in my mind I believe effective lessons will be a result.

Purpose:

In this particular lesson, I am going to present my students with a new unit as they voyage through vocabulary. This lesson will introduce young learners to homophones (or homonyms,) words that are pronounced the same but are spelled differently and hold different meanings. I want the young learners to understand that we can not simply rely (a hundred percent of the time) on the pronunciation of words in order to spell a word correctly or give a particular meaning. I want my students to be able to recognize specific homophones by listening to the identical pronunciations but becoming aware that each word is unique to the other in meaning and spelling.

Materials, Resources, Methods, Classroom procedures:

In order to fulfil this goal, I am going to need some specific materials. I will need my poem A Pair of Shoes, crayons, white paper, flash cards of homophones, long white paper, a marker, and of course, all ears and eyes.

Background Knowledge:

In order for my students to appreciate the lesson to its fullest, the students must have a clear understanding of a homophone. A quick introduction to synonyms and antonyms may prove helpful if students ask questions such as “Miss Dalzell, what is it called when a word is pronounced differently but has the same meaning?” I would then remind the student that words like that are called synonyms. “Remember, I talked briefly about that last class... we will learn more on synonyms next week.”

Body of Lesson:

My lesson plan will begin by reading the poem A Pair of Shoes, my introductory poem to homophones. The poem will be a larger version so the children can follow along. I will ask my students to pay particular attention to words that are written in colors other than green. I will reinforce to them that all the colored words other then green are the homophones and that even though Miss Dalzell pronounces the colored words the same the students are able to see that there are different spellings and different meanings for each word. After the poem is finished, I will ask the children if they can think of any homophones off the top of their head. If they are having difficulty, I will write some different homophones on my large piece of paper.( Something like I have presented on the back side of the poem just to help them out.) I will now have the children take part in an activity with the new homophones that either I or my students presented and the homophones found in the poem. I will give each student a flash card with a homophone. This activity is to be carried out with a partner. I think interaction is a wonderful way to reinforce what is being taught. It allows the students to not only learn from me but from each of their peers. I will ask the students to pronounce each homophone found on each side of their card to their partner (to reinforce the identical pronunciation) and then I will ask each of them to draw a picture accordingly.

Closure:

When the children are finished they will be able to see that one pronunciation has two different spellings and two different meanings. Their end product will be a hands on, visual proof of homophones. Each student t will share with the rest of the class their completed homophone flash card. Each flash card will be hung around the class so the students can take pride in what they learned. I will always make sure there is enough time for questions and comments.

Assessment:

At the end of the unit, I will take all the homophones from the flash cards and ask the children to present an oral sentence with the particular homophone. I will then ask the students to write only the homophone from their sentence onto a piece of paper. This assessment will be combined with the students completed flash card. As a teacher, it is important that I am sensitive to all learning styles. I think a fair assessment involves, oral, written, and auditory, all of which have been taken into consideration.