Lesson Plan For Primary School Science

Objectives
By the end of the lesson, pupils should be able to:

1. list and identify the external features of animal
2. classify the animals into groups according to their external features
3. paste the pictures of animals according to their external feature into a table.

Description of the children:
The text is prepared for the year three students. Students in this school are found weak in the English subject. They encounter big problem as reading English text where they unable to understand well about the content. One of the capabilities that most of the children in this class already have for reading text is encoding. They have learnt the consonant sounds in their previous lesson and this leads them to have the ability to read out the words properly.

However, there are some weaknesses occur among students in their reading skills. The students do not have enough vocabulary in English. “Learning vocabulary is a very important part of learning a language. The more words you know, the more you will be able to understand what you hear and read.” (S. Paul, 2001) Students need to make meaning before they able to understand the whole text. In order to do this, they should learn more words to avoid from limited vocabulary. It is important to develop their vocabulary as it will guide students to understand more about the text when going through it. Students will have the ability to learn in thinking critically. Besides, those students are found unable to read fluently. They should practice to read to become a good reader. Reading fluently will build up the self confidence of each student and thus, they can concentrate on their reading.

The text given is about the topic of external features of animals. The size of each picture in the text is bigger enough for the year 3 students to see. The external features of those animals are shown clearly in the pictures. Besides, the words and sentences are found easy to understand which is suitable to the level of year 3 students. Big fonts have been used in the text to ensure all the readers are able to read it properly. Most of the words that created are easy and simple which can extend students’ understanding through this topic.

Moral value:

Protect animals	Students learn to not hurt any animals which do not harm to us. Students show their care to the animals.
Cooperation	Students cooperate with their peer to carry out their work during the activities.
Helping	Students learn to help those who are weak in their work during the lesson. They are willing to share their ideas to do well in the activities.

Language content:

• For example: Birds have wings.
• They also have beaks.
• Their bodies are covered with feathers.

Vocabulary

1. wing
2. beak
3. feather
4. claw
5. tail
6. fur
7. trunk
8. tusk
9. shell
10. horn

Teaching aids
Real animal (snail), pictures of animals, manila cards, glue, colour pencil, marker pens, table for classification, pencil, CD (sound of animals), notebook, worksheets, handout of text.

Previous knowledge
Pupils have learnt and approached to the animals during their daily life. They have the ability to imagine the part that can be found on the animal body. Besides, they can also explore the features through their pet such as dog, cat , bird. and known more about:

Step	Content	Teaching Learning strategy	Rationale	Remarks/Teaching aids
Set Induction 5 minutes	Snail show: Teacher’s questions: 1. What animal is this? 2. Is it different from other animals? Why does it so special? 3. What do you think the shell will feel like? 4. Why the shell is important to snail? Expected responses: 1. This is a snail. 2. Yes, it has a shell on its body. 3. It is hard and strong. 4. It protect the snail.	• Teacher brings the real model – 6 snails to the class. • Teacher divides students into 6 groups. There are 5 pupils in each group. • Teacher gives each group a snail. • Teacher requires pupils to observe the snails without touching and disturb them. • Teacher asks students question regarding to the snail after the observation. • Teacher leads students to the explanation of external features of animal during the discussion.	Real animals-snail is prepared by the teacher during the lesson in order to give a clearer picture about the topic and connect students to the real world. “Learning is a function of experience and the best education is one that is sensory-rich, emotionally engaging, and linked to the real world.” (W. Laverne & S. Judith, 2005) Teacher scaffolds the pupils by providing them to experience in the activity. This may keeps them to the long term memory about what they have learnt. Teacher keeps asking question to activate students using their previous background knowledge that contribute in the lesson.	√ 6 snails √ white papers Moral values: be kind to animals cooperation Skills: Observing Analyzing
Step 1 10 minutes	Learning vocabulary, reading text: Teacher’s questions: How many animals can you find from this text? What are the differences between these animals? What are the external features from each animals? Why do you think it is important for them? (e.g.: butterfly) Expected responses: 1. Four animals. 2. They have different types of external features. 3. Butterfly has wings It uses them to fly.	• Teacher prepares some flash cards to show to the students. • Each flash card contains a vocabulary such as beak, feather. • Teacher pronouns each word followed by students. • Teacher gives a clear definition of each word after pronouncing it. • Teacher gives the text to each the pupils to read together in the classroom. • Teacher question pupils about the text given.	Teacher identifies the difficult words before reading. By using this way, teacher ale to ensure all the students can read and understand well about the text given. It can attract students to focus on the main ideas in the text. Teacher applies text as the teaching aid in order to practice the reading skill among pupils. Teacher also scaffolds students’ learning by questioning. “Questions permit people to check for understanding and obtain information.” (D. L. Daniel, 1990) This supports students in absorbing new knowledge and enriches their prior understanding.	• Text • Manila card Moral values: • Confident • Communicate • Helping each other Skills: • Reading • Speaking
Step 2 15 minutes	Classification of external features of animals: Animals with: 1. beak (duck, chicken) 2. claw (tiger, cat) 3. tail (elephant, dog) 4. wing (butterfly, bird) 5. shell (turtle, snail)	•Teacher divides pupils into 6 groups where each groups has 5 persons. •Teacher provides some pictures of animals and a big table drawn on a manila card for each group. •Pictures are needed to classify the animals according to their external features and paste them on the table of manila card. •Each group pastes their work on the black board and discusses their work.	The pictures given encourage pupils to enrich their knowledge and practice the scientific skills of classification. They conduct the knowledge through this hand on activity. “Through activity, teachers believe they help their students to make sense of the concepts being taught.” (H. Jennifer, 2001) Teacher guides and scaffolds students by organizing interesting activity (classify and paste). It attracts the students’ interest within the topic. They work collaboratively with their peers and are given chances to communicate in front of class.	• 6 Manila cards • Glue • 10 pictures of animals. Moral values: • communicate • cooperate Skills: • classifying • communicating
Step 3 15 minutes	• Game: Different sound & external features that shown: √sound of cow √sound of cat √sound of chicken √sound of goat √sound of mouse √sound of frog	• Pupils are required to stay with their own group. • Every group is given name as group 1, 2...6. • Teacher plays the sounds of different animals using CD. • The group of pupils needs to use their part of body to act or show the external features of the animal based on the sound of animals that given when the teacher calls their group. • Pupils are only allowed to use their body language to represent the actions without speaking. • Group that presents well will gain 1 mark and for the group which fails to do it will get 0 marks. • The group that gets higher mark will become the winner.	In order to enable pupils to extend their existing levels of comprehension, interesting game is organized. It engages pupils to participate and enjoy in their learning process. A good teaching offers a lot of surprises for the children to go through in their learning process. They communicate with their peer groups in order to get highest mark. This game helps to recall their previous knowledge and apply them again during the game. Children try to remember and demonstrate the external features using their body language.	• Notebook • Sound of animals (CD) Moral values: • Cooperate Skills: • Listening • Communicating
Enrichment and remedial activities 10 minutes	Exercises 1: Let us circle and colour •Circle and colour the picture of animals which have same external features with same colour in the farm. Exercise 2: Try it! •Fill in the blanks with correct words to answer the questions.	• Teacher gives the worksheets for pupils to complete. • Teacher explains about the works or exercises. • Teacher guides and assist the students who are weak in this topic. • Students are allowed to use dictionary to find the words that they are not understand. • Students discuss the answers with teacher.	• This is the section that is conducted by teacher to evaluate the children to see if they understood this topic. “In addition to these classroom techniques, exercises and homework can be used formatively if teachers analyze where students are in their learning and provide specific, focused feedback regarding performance and ways to improve it.” (B. Ann & M.Colin, 2002) On the other hand, it also gives opportunity for those students who do not fully understood about the topic to practice more through these exercises. Teacher is taking an informed and active role in scaffolding to guide students to develop their learning.	• Work sheet 1 Let us circle and colour • Work sheet 2 Try it! • Dictionary Skills: • Writing • Reading
Closure 10 minutes	• Draw and label For example: chicken	• Teacher gives each pupil a paper. • Pupils are required to draw 1 animal that they like most on the paper given. • Pupils need to label the external features that can be found on the animals. • Teacher selects some students to read out their labels of external features. • Every student pastes their drawing on the board at the back of the classroom.	• Teacher lead students to recall and practice what they have learnt in drawing. She has changed another way to scaffold children. She requires the pupils to carry out their understanding by drawing rather than use all the words. Students usually feel bored when the lesson is coming to the end. Finally, they will not pay attention to what teacher is talking about. Thus, this is a way to attract their attention back to the lesson and participate in every learning process.	• Paper • Pencil • Glue • Colour pencil Skills: • Drawing • Reading writing