Elmo's Preschool

Computer-Lesson Plan

Created: Kristen Spada

This lesson was created to integrate with a unit entitled "All About Me". The unit's goals and objectives are part of the Prekindergarten social studies curriculum in Stafford Springs. It incorporates Elmo’s Preschool "face treehouse" moon game. It is ideal to use in this unit because it’s has similar goals and objectives. In the "face treehouse" Elmo explores facial features and emotions with the children. He teaches vocabulary and the correct location of facial features. He also reinforces to the users how we look when we feel certain emotions. This software is a perfect addition to help children understand themselves and their place in the world.

The activities in the lesson allow for different learning styles, visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Since I teach a multi-aged classroom and children are developmentally different, the activities and games can be monitored at many different levels. Children will be challenged and successful. Rewards, positive reinforcement and hints from Elmo will allow children to feel good about their learning. This enhances self-esteem and helps them to associate school positively. The purpose of this lesson is to expose the children to anatomically correct facial features and how they look when feeling certain emotions. Repeated exposure in different contexts, especially highly motivating ones such as computers, food and puppets, is how learning occurs at this developmental stage.

This is a lesson on facial features and emotions. It is the fifth lesson in the unit "All About Me". The children have been exposed to the parts of the body, clothing they wear, name and address. The lessons to complete this unit will center on their place in the world (family and school community) and how to share and be kind to each other. They will culminate the unit in a group project of hand-print flowers with their pictures in them (Our Prekinder-garden). During music and story time, the children will listen to theme related books and will play "Simon Says" and other games and songs to correspond with this unit.

I will demonstrate the games in the "face treehouse" to the whole group and then call student volunteers to play the moon game. After the class plays five or six games and are exposed to the concepts, I will break them into center groups and assign them to an activity. Four learning centers will be open for the children. Puzzle Center, highlighting body parts and clothing, Painting Center, using crayons and sponge paint people to create a picture, Rice Cake Face (Cooking Center)s, making faces and emotions they are feeling on rice cakes, Listening Center, listening to Sometimes I Feel Like a Mouse. I will also load the software onto the classroom’s PC and the children can have time to explore in the "face treehouse’." I will be teaching at the cooking center and will be responsible for the following objectives, materials and lesson development.

1) The students will create a face using the correct anatomical facial features and locations.

2) The children will be able to create a facial expression revealing how they are feeling.

3) The children will demonstrate positive social interactions. 

Software: Elmo’s Preschool by Creative Wonder 1998

Rice cakes, peanut butter, raisins, mini-marshmallows, plastic knives

Mirror

Elmo and Mini Mouse puppet

Puppet show with Mini Mouse and Elmo. Mini thinks the program is a Disney program and Elmo assures her that it is Sesame Street program. Mini first gets mad, then sad, then happy when Elmo asks her to help him in his mask presentation for the children. After the puppet show I will state the objective and tell them we will be using Elmo’s Preschool program to help us learn about making feeling faces.

 1. Demonstrate the "face treehouse" features and format in Elmo’s Preschool on a large media center monitor so all children can see and interact.

2. Play the moon game with the students asking for volunteers to make faces that match Elmo’s emotions. Question and monitor how they feel in certain situations for example, how they feel if they have a scary nightmare, or when they are laughing. Have the children make group faces for example, show me a happy face, sad face.

3. Choose two children to work on the computer program and select four children to come to the Cooking Center.

4. Ask each child individual to show you how they are feeling. Let them stand next to the mirror so they can see their face and their facial expression.

5. Using the rice cakes, peanut butter, raisins and mini marshmallow, the children will create a face that mirrors how they feel.

6. Let them eat their creations.

The teacher will ask the children to show how they are feeling. The teacher will tie this into their every day lives and every day activities by asking them to show how they would feel in certain situations. Last, the teacher could ask the children to give examples of when they felt certain emotions.

The students will be evaluated through observation of their responses and how they prepared their rice cakes. The teacher can observe the students' understanding of these concepts through questions and through their computer responses.