[LRRichardson]

Hello all!

I could really use some creative thinking. I have been out of teaching for 5 years to stay at home with my kids. My youngest will be in school full time next year, so I am hoping to start applying for jobs. My state teaching license expires this coming June and in order to renew I have to take a required reading course that starts very soon.

In week two of this class, I need to video tape myself teaching a differentiated lesson. Because I am not in a classroom currently, my advisor explained I can gather some friends and neighbors of different ages and abilities and teach a lesson. I was planning on getting my two kids ages 4 and 7, and then my two neighbor kids aged 6 and 8 together for this requirement. Does anyone have a quick and simple lesson idea I could do with these four ages? I have always taught 5th grade, so the primary grades are new to me. I was thinking maybe something revolving around patterns? If you have anything that pops into your head, I would love to hear it. Thanks!

[TeaPro]

You could read/have the "students" read a book, and then respond in some way depending on the skill or strategy you want to teach. The four year old could draw a picture of the main character or a favorite part or whatever, and the older kids could write from a sentence to a paragraph. In primary we differentiate daily by having reading groups of different levels. So my lower students might be reading an easy book, and practicing sight words. Higher readers of course read books matched to their levels and may work on a skill such as predicting or main idea, and also usually work on a spelling/phonics skill.

[LRRichardson]

Great Idea! Thank you for sharing. I felt like I was hitting roadblocks, this idea should work really well.