This assignment presents a week-long lesson plans for preschoolers using the story, "Zippy the Raindrop" and associated materials. A series of daily lessons plans is followed by a discussion concerning the plans and the position statement of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. It is well documented that in order to be effective, lesson plans must be relevant to young learners' lives and must actively engage their interests in learning. In many cases, it is possible to develop more effective lesson plans by combining two fields of study such as science and art to achieve these dual educational goals in preschool settings.
Combining Science and Art to Engage Young Learners
It is well documented that in order to be effective, lesson plans must be relevant to young learners' lives and must actively engage their interests in learning. In many cases, it is possible to develop more effective lesson plans by combining two fields of study such as science and art to achieve these dual educational goals in preschool settings. To this end, a lesson plan that can be tailored to the specific needs of primary school pupils that draws on science and art in meaningful ways therefore represents a timely and valuable contribution to the growing body of evidence-based practices. The scope of this lesson plan will extend to 3- and 4-year-olds in a preschool setting.
Long Curriculum Plan
A proposed curriculum plan for the week using the water cycle as the focus for the combination of science and art is presented in Table 1 below.
Table
Proposed Week-Long Curriculum Plan Based on 3-Hour Sessions
Day
Activity Plan
Materials Required or Recommended
Day No. 1
Activity No. 1: Read story concerning the water cycle, "To the Mountain and Back - Drippy the Raindrop" by Joel Kimball (see first page of story at Appendix A). The story of Drippy will speak very clearly to the children about what happens in the water cycle.
Activity No. 2: Discussion concerning the Drippy the Raindrop (adaptable to ages 3 to 5).
Activity No. 3: After reading the story, casually go over the four stages of the cycle. Keep it very simple and for very young children (2 -- 4 yeras), the big words can be skipped and the preschoolers can concentrate on the water cycle process using Drippy as part of the discussion.
Free "The Water Cycle" Color Posters & Coloring Pages available at http://www.first-school.ws/activities / science/drippy.htm.
Day No. 2
Activity No. 1: Review what was discussed during Day No. 1.
Activity No. 2: Read the content of the display posters to the preschoolers and suggest different activities (boiling some water to see evaporation, for example).
Activity No. 3: Have the preschoolers collate some of the pages together for a fun coloring book.
Activity No. 4: Coloring time!
Activity No.5: Have preschoolers discuss what they have colored.
1. Printer and/or copier (for display posters and coloring book pages).
2. Inexpensive binders or stapler.
3. Crayons.
Day No. 3
Activity No. 1: Review previous days' activities; answer new questions.
Activity No. 2: Discuss evaporation. Drippy evaporates. Ask preschoolers why Drippy evaporates and explain that the heat of the sun causes him to evaporate and become a vapor that goes up and he becomes part of the cloud. Activity No. 3: Illustrate evaporation by boiling some water in a kettle so the children can see the vapor rising.
1. Copy of Drippy the Raindrop.
2. Copy of evaporation poster.
3. Tea kettle.
4. Hot plate.
5. Quantity of water.
6. Paper.
7. Crayons.
Day No. 4
Activity No. 1: Review previous days' activities; answer new questions.
Activity No. 2: Discuss condensation. Drippy is now in the cloud and meets another raindrop who has also evaporated -- Captain Salty. While in the cloud, it is colder and Drippy is condensing and turns into water again. For this activity, the poster for the activity that demonstrates condensation will be read.
Activity No. 3: Have preschoolers draw pictures of clouds and the sun to reinforce learning.
1. Copy of Drippy the Raindrop.
2. Copy of condensation poster.
3. Paper.
4. Crayons.
Day No. 5
Activity No. 1: Review previous days' activities; answer new questions.
Activity No. 2: Discuss precipitation. Ask preschoolers what happens after a while in the cloud?
Activity 3. Discuss collection. The final activity involving Drippy ends up with him falling on a stream and then into a river, which carries him back to the ocean and this will happen all over again in a process termed collection. It is important to add that some of the rain will fall on land and become ground water - the water that people, animals, and plants use.
1. Copy of Drippy the Raindrop.
2. Copy of precipitation poster.
Source: Adapted from First-School.ws Preschool Activities and Crafts (2011) at http://www.first-school.ws/activities/science/drippy.htm
Discussion
The combination of art and science has been shown to be a proven way of engaging young learners' reasoning abilities, to identify spatial relationships and in constructing new concepts (Fernandez & Robinson, 2006). The lesson plan set forth in Table 1 above is sufficiently flexible to tailor the content to age-appropriate levels for 4- to 6-year-olds in a preschool setting. The curricular offerings will be organized according to the daily activity planning, course content and materials described above. To keep families informed of the project and solicit their support, a note will be sent home with all preschoolers the week prior to its implementation together with a copy of "Zippy the Raindrop" requesting that parents read the story, "Zippy the Rainbow," to their children and discuss its contents prior to coming to school the following week. Appropriate accommodations can be made for any preschooler who requires assistance in using the art materials recommended for this lesson plan. Teacher evaluation of the progress preschoolers make using the above-described lesson plan will take place beginning with day no. 1's activities and the results of this evaluation will be used to fine-tune the lesson plan as needed.
Statement Concerning How the Proposed Lesson Plan Reflects the Values of the Preschool Program of the National Association for the Education of Young Children
The proposed gender- and cultural-neutral lesson plan described above conforms to the values reflected in the Preschool Program of the National Association for the Education of Young Children's (NAEYC) position statement concerning developmentally appropriate early learning standards. In this regard, the NAEYC stipulates that four essential features must be followed in formulating activity planning for preschoolers as follows:
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