LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

Alison Shoaf
Miss. Juart, Guy K. Stump Elementary School
September 23rd, 2014; 1:20, 1:50, 2:20
September 16th, 2014

A. TITLE/TYPE OF LESSON: Homophone Rummy/ Word Study Lesson Plan

B. CONTEXT OF LESSON
The students in fourth grade are currently focusing on specific parts of literacy and homophones are
one of them. Miss Juart suggested I make a game using homophones to help see where each child is at
in their understanding. Homophones also will appear in reading and writing that the children are using
so it is important to understand and know the differences between words that sound the same.
Homophones also appear in various SOLs, such as 4.4 and 4.8, which expand on the fact that
homophones are used in almost every subject of school. My lesson will help students understand what
a homophone is and how to use each word in a homophone pair in context. This will help students
when they come across these words in reading, writing or other subjects. If the student is able to
recognize and understand the differences in homophone pairs they will be able to increase their
fluency and accuracy in reading, writing and other subjects. Most students in my classroom should be
in the within-word pattern stage of development and therefore should find that many homophones are
easy, with the exceptions of a few harder pairs that I included in the game. In order to assess where my
students are in understanding and applying their knowledge of homophones I will have a brief review
of what a homophone is and then the students will play homophone rummy. During homophone
rummy, they will be looking for pairs of matching homophones and once they have a pair they will
define each word in the pair and place them in front of them. The students will be working in pairs and
playing another pair. They can use their partner for help if they need it. At the end of my lesson, I will
collect sentences they have written that demonstrate their ability to differentiate between the two
words in a homophone pair. I have used various levels of homophones in order to differentiate for the
three classes I will be teaching this lesson for.
C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand
Know
Students will understand

what a homophone is and

be able to use each

homophone in the pair in

context.

The definition of each

word
The differences between
pairs

Do

Match each homophone

with its correct pair
Define each homophone
Use each homophone in a
sentence

D. ASSESSING LEARNING
Students will define what a homophone is as a class at the beginning of the lesson, they will then play
the game of rummy, matching each homophone to its correct pair. Once the match has been made, they
must define each word in the match. After completing the game, the students will pick one pair and
use each word in a sentence, demonstrating that they know how to use the different homophones in
context. I will then collect the sentences in order to assess that my objectives were made.
E. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (and NATIONAL STANDARDS if required)
4.4 The student will expand vocabulary when reading.

b) Use knowledge of roots, affixes, synonyms, antonyms, and homophones.

4.8 The student will edit writing for correct grammar, capitalization, spelling,
g) Use correct spelling for frequently used words, including common homophones.

F. MATERIALS NEEDED
6 sets of 52 cards (26 pairs of homophones)
Sticky notes
Instructions for the game
Dictionary
G. PROCEDURE
Preparation of the Learning Environment:
No preparation is needed before engaging students in my lesson.
Engage
I will begin my lesson by asking if anyone in the class knows what a homophone is. After
defining a homophone (words that sound alike, are spelled differently, and have different
meanings), I will ask if the students know any examples of homophones and list them on the
board, asking the child to define each word in the example they give.
Implementation of the Lesson
Once we have reviewed what a homophone is and some examples I will explain the game
we will be playing. I will say, You will find a partner and you and your partner will play
another set of partners. Each player will get seven cards, once you have your cards you will
check your hand for any existing pairs. If you have one lay it down in front of you and tell
your group what each word means or use it in a sentence to make it clear to each person you
are working with. Then with the rest of the cards in the center, you can begin the game. The
person whose birthday is next will begin, they pick a card from the center stack and try and
find a match in their hand, if they do not find one they discard a card. If you wish to pick a
card from the discard pile you must take all the cards below it. The game is finished when
one player runs out of cards and says Rummy!, the person with the most matches after
this happens is the winner. Your partner should be used for if you need help in matching or
defining a word but other than that I would like you to try this on your own. If your partner
can not help you with a definition you may phone a friend on the other team, if they do not
know the definition discard that card and continue the game. I will then tell each person to
find a partner by saying find a partner who is wearing the same color shirt as you, I will
help speed up this process too if it becomes out of hand. Once the students are partnered up I
will put two sets of partners against each other and give them one deck of homophone
rummy cards. The students will then play the game trying to match the following
homophone pairs as a team: no/know, ate/eight, plane/plain, one/won, not/knot, jeans/genes,
time/thyme, pail/pale, pair/pear, root/route, break/brake, cent/scent, flee/flea, creak/creek,
thrown/throne, way/weigh, aisle/Ill, bolder/boulder, serial/cereal, need/knead, peddle/petal,
pole/poll, past/passed, rain/reign, sole/soul, seller/cellar, soar/sore, vein/vain, medal/metal,
course/coarse, boy/buoy, base/bass, sell/cell, browse/brows, guessed/guest, scents/cents, and
tents/tense. Once they make one match the student must define both words or they do not
get to keep the match. The students will go until the deck is gone or until time is up.
Closure
I will save 8 minutes at the end of my lesson for my closure activity, which will be having
the students pick a pair of homophones in front of them and use each one in a sentence on a
sticky note. They will then place their sticky note on the board to indicate to me that they are
done and ready to move on to the next thing.
H. DIFFERENTIATION

Since I will be teaching this lesson to three different classes, I have included a variety of
homophones from simple to complex. I am unsure what each class will be like since they are not
all my home classroom and want them to be challenged but still get enjoyment and learn from
my lesson. If the students do really not understand the game I will allow them work as a team
rather than individually.
I.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
I could run out of time for my closing assessment at the end, in order to avoid
this I will pay close attention to the clock and ask Miss. Juart for her ideas on
how long I should leave for each activity.
Students could become off task while playing the game because it is a fun
game, if this happens I will give the students a warning and if I have to talk to
them again I will take the students out of the game that are causing a problem
and have them write sentences for the pairs we listed at the beginning of the
lessons.
There could be a fire drill or another safety drill since it is the beginning of
school, if this occurs I will follow the steps in order to have the children leave
the building safely and continue my lesson when we are instructed to return.

Lesson Implementation Reflection

As soon as possible after teaching your lesson, think about the experience. Use the questions/prompts below to guide
your thinking. Be thorough in your reflection and use specific examples to support your insights.
I. How did your actual teaching of the lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes and explain why
you made them.
I was able to teach this lesson three times for three different classes. The first time, I followed my lesson
plan exactly but it did not go as smoothly as I expected. I underestimated how fourth graders would
follow verbal written instructions and simply told them verbal directions and handed them the written
directions without demonstrating the game. I then had to stop the game in the middle of the lesson and
bring everyone together for a demonstration of how to play. This took away from the learning of the
lesson but taught me how to handle the next two times I would be teaching my lesson. Therefore, the
second and third time I taught my lesson, I did a complete demonstrate of the game with the entire class
at the very beginning, and from there the lesson ran much smoother.

II. Based on the assessment you created, what can you conclude about your impact on student learning? Did
they learn? Who learned? What did they learn? What evidence can you offer that your conclusions are
valid?
From my assessment, I can conclude that the students learned new pairs of homophones and gained
confidence in using the new words in the context of a sentence. I challenged them to use a pair of
homophones of that they learned from the game and not one they already knew. Of the three classes,
each with around eighteen students, more than two-thirds of the students were able to write two
sentences correctly using their homophone pair in context. Examples included:
The dog ran to me./I was hungry too.

I can hear the music./ Can you come here?

I drove on the road./ He rowed the boat on the lake.

III. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better or more
thorough way if you were to teach this lesson again.
In order to incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better way, I would sit down and

demonstrate the whole game with each class, just as I did with the second and third classes. The
students need concrete examples because they are still in the concrete operational stage of Piagets
theory.
IV. Based on the assessment data you collected, what would you do/teach next if you were the classroom
teacher?
From my data I would continue practicing with homophones, there are various ways to practice the
students understanding, such as having the students listen for a word in a sentence and being able to
correctly spell that word.
V. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about young
children as learners?
I have learned that even though the children say they understand your verbal directions they still
may need to see the activity once to be sure of their understanding.
VI. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about teaching?
I have learned that everything is not always going to go according to plan, you may have students
not understand and have to stop the whole game/activity and do a quick demonstration in order to make sure
students are getting the most of the of the activity/game that they are doing. I have also learned to be more
explicit in my expectations and directions to students.