Language Arts Lesson Plans – Grades 4, 5 and 6

TERM 1 UNIT 1

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INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIT

This unit seeks to build on the skills taught in Grade 5 via the theme ‘Our Common Heritage”, sub-theme ‘Culture and Heritage’ and the focus question, ‘What was Jamaica’s road to independence?’ It facilitates the development of active listening and speaking skills through discussion of pre-independence history, culture and heritage. It also aims to develop reading fluency through the application of grade-appropriate word recognition strategies regarding sight words, phonics and structural elements such as affixes. Text Sets are used to reinforce and extend students’ knowledge of main ideas, and their ability to summarise information and make inferences. Students are also given the opportunity to study the meanings of words and conduct basic research by effectively using books and a range of other sources, including online sources. In this unit, they also continue to practise using the stages of the writing process.

As well as the above mentioned materials, the unit also allows children to interact with content area texts and newspaper articles. Materials created by the teacher are also featured. Additionally, the unit makes use of resources within the community through the sharing of historical events relating to Jamaica’s independence. 

Most of the activities give students an opportunity to practise specific language skills. In some cases, the teacher may need to explicitly teach rules, structures and strategies prior to these activities. The content outline for Grade 5 must therefore be consulted for details on the scope of content/skills to be delivered.

NSC Integration Approach to Lesson Planning

As a means of providing a wholistic educational programme for our student, there are several approaches that teachers may adopt to plan lessons in order create a workable timetable. Approaches to integration of content include variations of Multi-Disciplinary or Cross Curricula Linkage. This may be in thee use of:

• a common theme and related focus questions to make connections to several subject areas.
• a real-life situation or case that requires the use of a solution that considers many different aspects of life that each subject indicates. An example of the latter is the integration of principles and practices from a specific set of disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering Design and Mathematics – STEM/STEAM when the Arts are added) and compatible processes to problem solve.

Integration approaches may also be applied within a discipline instead of across disciplines and are demonstrated in ways shown below:

1. Through spiralling of content as is practised when learners are required to reflect on Prior Learning or experience that is not limited to complete a task or to recall important ideas or information for undertaking a new concept or skill.
2. Transferring of skills that are specific to a subject area when a new skill within the same subject area is being developed or used by learners (intra-disciplinary integration).
3. Responding to Students’ queries or interests by allowing them to draw on other subject areas as a means of developing new understandings, dispositions or technical Skills.

In the NSC, the use of various ICT tools, problem solving through projects (R&T), the focus on culture for relevance of content and the use of various Art forms such as Music, Drama and Visual Arts to drive the content also serve as approaches to integration.

Provided below are some NSC tailored lesson plans, that can be tweeted to suit all/any lesson planning needs.

Language Arts

Theme: Cultural Heritage

Focus Question 1: – What was Jamaica’s Road to Independence?

Click the button below to take a look at Samples NSC Lesson Plans- Language Arts and Mathematics(PEP).