Lesson Plans Creating a lesson plan for a group of Kindergarten students can be very difficult. The activities you choose need to be fun, educational, and engaging as most 5 year olds tend to lose focus easily. Most children love music and dancing, so for this lesson plan I have chosen a dance titled Father Abraham. As you may have noticed I will be developing this lesson for a class of kindergarten student’s. At this stage of development children should be able to make conscious decisions regarding music, art, dance and theater, and respond to them with some form of emotion. They should also be able to notice different sounds, pictures, and movements, as well as notice their similarities. They may even be able to create their own music and dance moves. Lastly they should have fairly good body control, and can work independently (NAEYC, 2004). This class has a total of 10 students and here is a look at the lesson plan:
Grade Level: Kindergarten
Class Size: 10 Students
Student Learning Objective: As result of this lesson, students will . . .
• Distinguish left and right
• Follow commands on which arm, leg or head to move
• March in place
• Stay within their personal space
State Standard: The North Carolina State Standards we will cover in this activity are, apply competent motor skills and movement patterns needed to perform a variety of physical activities, understand concepts, principles, strategies, and tactics that apply to the learning and performance of movement, and to use behavioral strategies that are responsible and enhance respect to self and others and value activity (Public Schools of NC, n.d.).
Cues: Right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, and nod head
Equipment: Poly Spots, cassette or cd player, cards marked left and right.
Set Induction: Today we are going to march in place and learn our left from our right. Who can tell me which are their right arm and their left arm? As you will notice there are poly spots for each child to stand on. Let’s try to stay on our own dots. When I yell right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, and nod your head, I want you to move those body parts. If you get stuck I will help you, but don’t stop moving and only move the part once it has been called. Ok class let’s pick out a poly spot and stand and sing along if you know the song. Here are the words of the song that will be printed on a white board or projection screen:
“Father Abraham”. The song goes like this:
Father Abraham had many sons
Had many sons had Father Abraham
I am one of them
And so are you
So let's just praise the Lord
[Yell "right arm" and move right arm, as if marching.]

Father Abraham had many sons
Had many sons had Father Abraham
I am one of them
And so are you
So let's just praise the Lord
[Yell "right arm, left arm" and move both, as if marching.]

Father Abraham had many sons
Had many sons had Father Abraham
I am one of them
And so are you
So let's just praise the Lord
[Yell "right arm, left arm, right leg" and move all, as if marching.]

Father Abraham had many sons
Had many sons had Father Abraham
I am one of them
And so are you
So let's just praise the Lord
[Yell "right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg" and move all, as if marching.]

Father Abraham had many sons
Had many sons had Father Abraham
I am one of them
And so are you
So let’s just praise the Lord
[Yell “right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, nod your head, and move all, as if marching]
I will blow my whistle to indicate it is time to pick a poly spot and give the children 5 seconds to find a spot. If I notice a child is having trouble I will help them to a spot not taken. Once I have introduced the activity and gone over the directions, I will then restate the rules. Be quiet, listen carefully, respect others and their space, and when the game is over I will allow free dancing. This will be their reward for finishing the activity. For those that are not cooperating or following the rules I will first go to them privately or point out how another student is properly doing the activity. For instance I would say, “Robert isn’t Sally doing a great job staying on her poly spot and dancing?” After free dance we will take a short time to regroup and go over what we learned and see how many students retained their right from their left. I will also take their opinions of the activity for future lesson. Here is my introduction to the class for this lesson plan:
“Hello class! Today we are going to do an exercise that involves music and dancing. Everyone raise your right arm. Ok now raise your left leg (I will take note of who raised the proper arm and leg). We are going to listen to a song titled “Father Abraham” and he had many sons. The song is going to tell us to move our arms, legs, and to nod our head. We are going to be marching kind of funny at times, but by the end of the song we are going to march all together. When I blow my whistle I want everyone to find a poly spot and stand on that spot. It is important that we all try to stay on our own spot so we do not interrupt the student beside you and we do not bump into each other and no one gets hurt. I have made some cards with the letters R and L on them to help you remember which arm and leg to move. Who would like to have a set of cards? (This is done as to not point out who does not know their right from their left.) I would then give those who wanted cards to them and make sure they are in the proper hands. Now when the song starts listen carefully and when they yell right arm I want you to move your right arm like a hammer. Make sure you keep it moving to the beat so listen carefully. Next when they yell left arm, I want you to move your left arm just like a hammer, but do not stop moving your right arm too. Next they are going to yell right leg, and I want you to march your right leg only. This is going to be tricky because you need to leave your left leg still, but keep moving those arms. Next they will yell left leg and now you can march your left leg, right leg and still keep them arms moving. Lastly, they will yell nod your head. You are going to nod your head, march your legs, and hammer your arms all at the same time. Remember stay on your spot, and listen carefully. Are there any questions? Ok class lets dance. Cue the whistle and music when everyone is in place. As the children are doing this activity I will monitor all of the students for skill level and document those who are on task and those who are either struggling or just need a little friendly reminder. I will take detailed notes to later add to a chart for the student's progress. If it appears this is useful we will play again until all students have mastered the lesson and no longer need cards. Below you will find a copy of a flyer I intend to send home to parents informing them of our upcoming lesson. It is important to do this because this is also an activity they can do with their child and prior to the lesson they can work on recognizing right and left.

I will also be including a copy of the activity and words to the song so they can practice this at home with their family. The home and school connection is extremely important. One way to make this a priority is to keep parents up to date with what you are teaching and giving them activities they can incorporate at home. As parents it is important that they provide a positive, open atmosphere that supports what goes on in the classroom, and instill the desire to learn (Scholastic, n.d.). With this activity it not only gives the parents an opportunity to work with their child, but it also gives the child an opportunity to show them what they are learning in class. Children get very excited when they can share with their families.
As you can see this is a physical lesson plan and the students need to be able to move their extremities. So, what if I have a child who is wheelchair bound and can only move their arms? It is important that all children are included into a lesson plan. This activity allows for modifications for instances like this one. It is important to follow the 4 S’s when developing a lesson plan. That is to be sure the lesson is Safe, Successful, Satisfying, and Skill Appropriate (Hastie, 2012). For this to be successful and satisfying to a wheelchair bound student instead of moving our legs we could spin around. They would have more space to do this of course, and we would spin first right and then left. I would first demonstrate as this could be confusing.
In conclusion of this lesson I feel it is important to get feedback from both students and parents. Provided that both feel they enjoy the activity, and provided the students are learning from the activity, will show whether or not it is successful. Keeping the lesson fun, engaging and educational will guarantee success. And as I stated before it needs to be adaptable for all sorts of unexpected incidents. This activity follows both state and national standards set up for kindergarten students. For the national standard this lesson adheres to all 5 standards stated by SHAPE America. References
Hastie, P., (2012) Foundations of Moving and Learning. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUPED212.12.1/sections/sec8.1
NAYEC, (2004) Children’s Developmental Benchmarks and Stages: A Summary Guide to Appropriate Arts and Activities. Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200407/ArtsEducationPartnership.pdf
Public Schools of North Carolina, (n.d.) North Carolina State Standards for Physical Education. Retrieved from http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/acre/standards/new-standards/healthful- living/khs.pdf
Scholastic (n.d.), The Home-School Connection. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/parent-teacher-partnerships/home-school-connection National PE Standards (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.shapeamerica.org/standards/pe/