LANGUEAGE EDUCATION

Marta Chudzik, Monika Kopyt, Zuzanna Matyjasiak

FLY, EAGLE, FLY

Lesson plans for 3rd grade students
PRE READING ACTIVITIES- Lesson 1
The aim of pre reading activities is to activate students background knowledge, make them
interested in the topic and prepare them to further reading. During these activities they will
revise information about animals living on the farm and their features. They will describe,
compare and make predictions. Moreover, students will learn about an eagle and the
environment in which it lives. They will also learn new vocabulary which will help them to
understand the story.
1. Activating students background knowledge about the farm, eliciting the answers for the
questions:
What is a farm? What kind of animals live on the farm? What do people do on the farm?
2. Watching a short film about living on the farm and farm animals: Farm DVD : bee bright Out & About on the Farm - Amazing Animals! (Justin Fletcher)
3. Talking about the film. The teacher asks the questions again. What animals live on the
farm? (Students name animals from the film). How do they look like? What can they do?
(Volunteers describe animals)
4. Children make a small poster with animals living on the farm. They draw (or stick) the
pictures of animals and their names. They also describe the features of animals (they can do
the task in pairs).
5. The teacher shows the picture of an eagle and asks: What is the name of this animal? Does
it live on the farm? (Students give answers). The teacher helps students to describe an eagle.
Then, students get two pictures: an eagle and a chicken. They have to compare the features
and abilities of these two birds (they can do the task in pairs).
6. The teacher asks students: where does an eagle live? She/he shows different pictures
connected with the eagles natural environment (these are new words from the text: valley,

rocky cliffs, mountain, slopes, rocks, reed). The students learn new vocabulary by playing
games (games with flashcards, charades, guessing games) and completing the handout.
7. The teacher presents the title of the story and asks students to predict what the story is
about. Students guess and make predictions.

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES- Lesson 2

While- reading activities are defined as activities that help students to focus on aspects of the
text and understand it better. The aim of this stage is to help students to understand the
specific content. With these tasks teacher takes learners through the reading and they interact
in the text. In this part the teacher is supposed to read the story aloud, stop in important
moments and ask questions in order to check students comprehension. Moreover, she/ he can
show the pictures from the story for learners better understanding.
1. The students sit on the carpet in a circle. The teacher reads the story aloud smoothly,
slowly, with proper intonation. He/ she uses different voices, sounds, facial expression
and gestures. While reading, the teacher shows the pictures from the story.
2. The teacher asks children to stand up and starts reading again. While he/she is reading,
the students have to show the characters actions, for example: search for, climb the
slopes, huddle, hatch from egg, etc.. using gestures, or terrible storm, etc. making
sounds.
3. The teacher asks questions for comprehension, for example: What does the farmer find
on a rocky cliff? Does he take an eagle his home? Where does an eagle start to live?
etc.. Children answer teachers questions.
4. The teacher gives the students a set of pictures that presents the events from the story,
but are not organized chronologically (one set of pictures for one pair). While working
in pairs, the students have to arrange the pictures in order.
5. The teacher reads the story aloud again. The students check if the order of pictures is
put correctly.

6. The students are given the same number of short descriptions of pictures from the
story. Again, working in pairs, they have to match the descriptions with proper
pictures.
7. The teacher checks the task. He/ she asks volunteers to read the descriptions of the
pictures. The students listen to each other, follow it and check if they have the same
order of events in the story.

POST READING ACTIVITIES- Lesson 3

Post-reading stage is the important component of the reading process. The aim of this stage is
to summarize, reflect and question what students have read and learned. It gives students
opportunity to express their understanding of reading, either in writing, discussion or graphic
representation. Moreover, it allows them to learn from each other and to integrate the content
of reading material into their knowledge base. Students will summarize key points after
reading what help them comprehend the information that was learned.
1. Teaching vocabulary. The teacher displays the picture of an eagle on the board and
provides the names of eagles body parts (beak, wing, feathers, tail, claw). The
students link names with body parts on the blackboard and after this they glue printed
out picture of an eagle in their notebooks and write body parts.
2. Consolidation of the vocabulary by TPR activities. Students practice vocabulary by
acting out eagles movements and pointing out eagles body parts. At the very
beginning the teacher gives commands. Later, the teacher chooses few students to give
commands to the rest of the group.
3. Whole class conversation. The teacher revises with the students an eagles habitat,
food and hunting practices. The teacher asks also comprehension questions to check if
the students understood the story properly. Secondly, the students get a handout with
filling-in activities and matching activities about the most important information from
the discussion. The students fill in the handout individually, later check in pairs and
finally discuss it with the whole class.
4. Creating a mind map and writing activity. The teacher asks the students what they
have learned from the story and what was the most interesting or surprising for them.
The teacher leads the conversation in a way to remind students about the moral of the
story and symbolic meaning. As a way of summary, they put all information on the

mind map on the poster. They are taught how to group information and how to put it in
the graphic form. Finally, students write the beginning of the sentence in their
notebooks: The story Fly, eagle fly taught me that and individually write ending.
5. Guessing game. The students are divided into groups of 4. Each group are asked to
prepare 3 questions about the story or animals discussed before and ask them to other
groups. The group who know the answer, get the point. The winner is the group with
the highest score.
6. Art project. The task is to design illustrations to the story. The children are divided
into groups and the teacher passes out copies with some part of the story to each
group. They are asked to read their part, paste it on the paper and make an illustration
to this part of the story.
7. Creating big story book. The learners with the teachers help make one big book with
illustrations created by the students.