This amazing lesson is the Winner of our Child Development Lesson Plan Competition! The goal of this lesson is to explore bedtime issues/fears of children & how to respond to them. Students will also create a community service project called “Fear-Me-Not” characters to help children in abuse shelters feel more secure and safe during their stay.
The idea for this lesson came from Alison Gopnik’s work studying babies minds. “What’s it like to be a baby? It’s like being in love in Paris for the first time after you’ve had three double espressos” she says. This lesson is an introduction to scientific studies on human beings and aims to replicate Ms. Gopnik’s broccoli vs. goldfish empathy experiment.
In this lesson students will determine if they were or still are picky eaters. They will view a you tube video of the Arthur cartoon entitled “DW The Picky Eater” and fill out a graphic organizer while viewing. Following the video students discuss the information from the graphic organizer and brainstorm with a partner some fun, creative ways to get a picky eater to eat. These ideas may be based on personal experiences. Students will share their quick ideas with the group and then individually, students will investigate further by completing the mini poster computer project entitled “DW’s Top Ten Suggestions for Feeding the Picky Eater” which will be shared orally with the class when finished.
I felt as if the children didn’t truly understand the size of a premature baby until I presented them with the Preemie Caps project. Using the sewing machine students will make very basic stitches to make hats for premature babies that eventually get donated to a local Children’s Hospital.
This project encourages students to write their own children’s book using the STORYBIRD website. They don’t even have to be artistic as templates from a variety of artists are available for use. After they write their book they create a VOKI to encourage others to read it. VOKI is also a free website where student create a talking avatar. Students can create books on any themes or you can assign a specific theme. The possibilities are limitless.
This lesson focuses on Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences. Students determine how they are smart and then learn more about the learning styles and how they apply to children. To make it fun, I will have the students participate in 6 different activities each illustrating various learning styles. Students must identify the learning style(s) illustrated in each activity and justify why. A quiz on the multiple intelligence will complete the lesson.
Every so often I will write a sponsored post. I allow companies who have products or services that I think would be helpful to you as readers advertise through a sponsored post. COPE24 is a parenting curriculum that is unique in that it is not a typical lecture style DVD but rather a DVD with realistic scenarios that parents deal with that are open ended allowing for plenty of discussion opportunities.
Have a preschool program at your school? Here are some tried and true lessons and ideas to keep your preschoolers busy and learning of course!
Introduce your students to how humans grow through Erikson’s statges of psychosocial development. Make this lesson personal by allowing students to self reflect on the struggles of mastering each stage.
How do babies grow and develop? We were all there once and of course there are several theories on how we develop socially, emotionally, and cognitively. This lesson is a intro type lesson to the general concept of theorists and child development theory.
