Essay On First Grade Lesson

Out of the different lessons I saw, I chose to do a critique on a First Grade lesson called, ‘Teeth with a Bite’. I chose this lesson because I think that 1st grade is an appropriate grade to start teaching the students the importance of taking care of their teeth and what can happen if they do not. I tend to think that this lesson could be taught at a Kindergarten level but perhaps First grade is more developmentally appropriate because the students can understand the information more clearly and relate it better to their everyday life. This lesson plan did include two different health goals, they are as follows; ‘I will take care of my teeth’ and ‘I will take care of my body. (Growth and Development). I enjoyed that this lesson plan indicated what the goals were, they were easy for the students to understand and follow, and these goals were both obtainable for the age of these students. The lesson plan did also include ‘Health Education Standards’ and it was the very first thing I read, prior to reading the lesson itself. The Health Education Standards are as follows; ‘Students will comprehend concepts related to health promotion and disease prevention to enhance health’ and ‘Students will demonstrate the ability to use goal-setting skills to enhance health’. These health standards are excellent because they aren’t just specifically focusing on the ‘teeth’ aspect of the lesson, instead they are encouraging students to be healthy in all aspects of their lives. The standards are hoping to teach students how to set and obtain specific goals that are related to improving their health and overall happiness. This lesson plan did a fantastic job of providing detail on the performance indicators. This lesson specifically had five areas of motivation in which they described in detail what the students would be learning and in which way this learning would be assessed. The lesson started with having three purposes of teeth. The first purpose was introduced by having a discussion that explained to the students the topic of having healthy teeth and why this was an important matter. Individual students would be called on to come up in front of their classmates and asked to, ‘take a bite out of a carrot and chew that bite in their mouth’. The student would be asked to try and take a bite of the carrot after they had placed their lips over their teeth. It is clear after the attempt to take a bite of the carrot that the student would be unable to do so. This example would lead to the assessment question of ‘what are teeth used for?’. The second purpose was introduced by showing students two different photographs of an individual. The first photograph showed the individual with all of their teeth; nice, shiny, and white. The second photograph showed the same individual with some teeth blacked out to show loss of those teeth. Students were shown each photograph, one at a time and were asked to explain what they thought of the individual in the photograph and what the differences were between the two. After …show more content…
Unfortunately, the lesson plan didn’t discuss in detail the ways it would adapt for cultural diversity or for ELLS however, this could be done by having those students work alongside other students or by putting the worksheets in their primary language. In regards to the special learning challenges, this lesson does promote problem solving, self-directed learning, and lifelong skills. This lesson meets all those needs because if children are unaware of how to take care of their teeth, this lesson and its activities will teach that to children and also teach them what can happen if they choose not to take care of their teeth. It provides the students and their parents information on the different foods that are good for teeth, the foods not good for teeth, and also points out that brushing and flossing your teeth can also make a big difference. All of these skills are going to be life-long and can be easily performed by all students. A nice addition to this lesson would be to give the students a package that includes a toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss. This would be beneficial to the students who may not have access to these