Lesson Plan

Name/Course: Julie Degner (10076363) EDUC460S01

Date: February 26th, 2014

Subject: Grade Three Language Arts: Roald Dahls Georges

Marvelous Medicine Vocabulary
Bridge: -This activity is based upon the novel Georges Marvelous Medicine, by Roald Dahl
-This novel should be read as a class previous to the activity actually taking place.
-Before reading the book together, the teacher should implement several classes that focus on
spelling, grammar, writing complete sentences, and identifying various parts of language, such as
nouns, verbs, and adjectives. This will ensure that the Roald Dahl vocabulary lesson scaffolds upon
previous lessons in the language arts area, and expands the students knowledge of how to use tools
such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives to enhance their own writing.
-The lessons on grammar, phonics, sentence structure, and spelling will also be used to later help the
students read, invent, and define new vocabulary words during their reading of Georges Marvelous
Medicine and implement them into their own writing.
-After the activity takes place, the teacher can later expand upon the topics learned by introducing
more complex writing tools such as pronouns or adverbs, and building upon the students previous
knowledge of adjectives, nouns, and verbs.
-This activity will also allow the students vocabulary to be steadily built upon in the future and to
allow all of their new vocabulary words to eventually become sight words.
-Students will also be encouraged by this activity to continue to develop their skills in sounding out
new words and spelling them based upon generalizations and phonetic rules.
Learning Objective: -This lesson fits into many aspects of the Grade three Language Arts
curriculum, including the following:
1. Explaining new ideas in ones own words.
2. Exploring new ideas through discussion with the class and referral to other sources of media
(eg. Georges Marvelous Medicine).
3. Sharing ideas or specific vocabulary words with the class.
4. Students asking for feedback from the class on their own work to further explore their own
ideas and use of vocabulary.
5. Students asking questions of their classmates and the teacher to clarify definitions of specific
vocabulary words.
6. Using texts (eg. Georges Marvelous Medicine) to create meaning.
7. Using grammatical knowledge to construct proper sentences.
8. Extending sight vocabulary.
9. Confirming meaning by re-reading.
10. Using knowledge of capitalization, commas, exclamation marks, and question marks to
enhance writing.
11. Applying phonics and generalizations to read new words.
12. Breaking unfamiliar words into syllables.
13. Using dictionaries to define and spell unfamiliar words.
14. Adding details to pieces of writing.
15. Contributing to class discussions to enhance various pieces of information.
16. Students editing their own work.
17. Printing legibly and spacing sentences properly on pages.

18. Identifying and using a variety of sentence types.

19. Using correct subject-verb agreement in writing.
20. Using adjectives to enhance writing.
21. Demonstrating respect for other peoples ideas.
22. Working cooperatively with others in a group setting.
23. Contributing constructive ideas to group discussions (Alberta Learning, 2000).
Pre-assessment: -Students will take part in a game
Materials: -Copies of Georges Marvelous
that tests their previous knowledge of identifying
Medicine by Roald Dahl for teacher and all
vocabulary words as nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
students
-This game will also test the students previous skills
-Lined Paper
in reading and defining new words.
-Dictionaries
-In the activity, students will study terms from
-Thesauruses
Georges Marvelous Medicine and identify them as
-Pencils
nouns, verbs, or adjectives.
-Large white board or large easel
-Some of these terms will be Roald Dahls original
-Markers
vocabulary words that he invented himself.
-The teacher will select a number of words from the
novel to use in the game.
-Students will also select words for the game by
sharing terms with the class that they came across in
the book and did not recognize. This will give the kids
the opportunity to sound out new words together, as
well as to define them with the teacher using a
dictionary before finding out whether it is a noun,
verb, or adjective.
-After organizing the class into groups of four or five,
the teacher will write each word on the board one at a
time. This strategy will encourage the kids to learn the
correct spellings of the words and to sound them out in
their heads use generalizations and phonics at the same
time as they identify them.
-The group that puts up their hands fastest and
correctly identifies the word will get a point.
-The group that has the most points at the end will win
a small prize.
Participatory Learning:
Time
-1 or 2
chapters per
day for
about 2
weeks.
-About 20
minutes of
reading per
session.

Instructor Activities
-Teacher reads Georges
Marvelous Medicine out
loud to the class.
-Reads one or two chapters
per day, depending upon
the length of the chapter,
until novel is finished.

Learner Activities
-Students follow along
with Roald Dahls novel
with their own copy of the
book.
-Underline vocabulary
words that they do not
know or words that they
think Roald Dahl
invented.

Resources
-Copies of Georges
Marvelous Medicine for the
teacher and the entire class.
-Pencils for underlining.

-30-45
minutes
-This
should take
place in the
time frame
of one class
only.

-Teacher leads preassessment activity.

-Chooses vocabulary
words from the novel,
including those that Roald
Dahl invented himself, and
writes them on the board
one at a time.
-Asks the class which
words they underlined in
their books, and uses them
as other examples for the
game.
-Helps the students to
define the words they bring
forward by generating
discussion and properly
using dictionaries.
-Keeps track of how many
correct answers each group
completes and awards
prize to winning group.

-Students complete preassessment activity and

demonstrate their
previous knowledge of
identifying vocabulary
words and reading and
defining unknown words.
-Look back on words
underlined in their book
copies and bring them
forward to the class as
examples to be used in
the game.
-Collaborate within
groups to correctly sound
out and read the new
words, define them, as
well as identify them as
nouns, verbs, or
adjectives.

-White board/large easel

-Markers
-Students underlined copies
of Georges Marvelous
Medicine.
-Dictionaries

-About 60
minutes
-If required,
more time
may be
used.
-This 60
minute time
period may
be used as
one large
class, or
broken into
two halfhour
periods,
depending
on the
teachers
and
students
preferences.

-Teacher explains the Roald

Dahl writing activity in full
detail and answers any
questions regarding it:
-This is an individual
assignment.
-Each student must write a
paragraph in which they must
answer the following
questions:
1. If you were going to make
your own marvelous
medicine, what would it be
called?
2. What ingredients would you
use? List at least five.
3. Who would you feed your
medicine to?
4. What would your medicine
do?
-Students paragraphs must
also include the following
components:
1. 8 nouns (four of which must
be from the novel).
2. 4 verbs (two of which must
be from the novel).

-Students must write a

paragraph about Roald
Dahls Georges
Marvelous Medicine.
- Expected to follow all
of the assignment
requirements.
-Must work alone during
the writing of their first
draft.
-Use dictionaries and
thesauruses properly and
effectively.
-When they are finished,
students must edit their
own work carefully and
quietly share it with at
least one other member
of the class for
constructive criticism.
-Students cannot bother
those individuals who are
still working on their first
draft.

-Lined paper
-Pencils
-Students copies of Georges
Marvelous Medicine with
underlined vocabulary
words.
-Dictionaries
-Thesauruses.

-30 minutes
-This
should take
place in one
class only
and should
be on a
different
day from
the actual
writing
activity.

3. 4 adjectives (two of which

must be from the novel).
4. 2 words of Roald Dahls
own invention
5. 2 words of the students own
invention.
-The final component of this
assignment is that the students
must have at least five new
vocabulary words in their
paragraphs that they learned
during the pre-assessment
activity or actual reading of the
novel.
-Teacher will also circulate
within the room, helping
individual students with
problems arising in sounding
out new words, spelling,
identifying adjectives, verbs,
and nouns, and coming up with
vocabulary words of their own.
-Maintains good working
habits and behavior in the
classroom area.
-Ensures that students are
working individually at first,
and gradually form quiet
discussion groups.
-Helps students to use the
dictionaries and thesauruses
properly.
-Accepts all completed papers
at the end of the work period.

-Provide constructive
criticism to those
students who come to
them for feedback.

-Teacher encourages kids

to share their papers with
the rest of the class.
-Teachers points out the
different vocabulary words
that different students use
both from the novel and
from their own mind and
questions the rest of the
class about them.
-Reinforces students good
behavior by complimenting
them on their work and
asking questions about
their paragraphs.
-Teacher ensures that the
rest of the class is behaving

-Students should share

their paragraphs with the
rest of the class.
-Those students who are
not sharing should
provide feedback to the
kids who are by saying
what they enjoyed about
their paper, and pointing
out vocabulary words
that they did not know
before or found
interesting.
-Students should also
point out similarities and
differences between their
own paragraphs and their

-Students paragraphs

well during the

presentations, and are
constructively commenting
on other students work.

-20-30
minutes
-This
should take
place in the
time frame
of one class
on a
different
day than
the sharing
activity.

classmates to encourage
collaboration among the
class as a whole.
-Question other students
about their work so that
they can continue to
learn during the process
of sharing.
-When a word is written
on the board, the student
who invented that
particular word is
required to provide a
brief definition of the
term and say it in a
sentence.
-After listening to this
description, the rest of
the students will race to
see who can guess first if
the term is a noun,
adjective, or verb.
-Students should
compliment and question
each other about the
different vocabulary
words that they invented
so that they can continue
to develop their language
skills during this process.

-Teacher leads post-Markers

assessment activity.
-Students paragraphs
-This activity is basically a
-White board/large easel
repeat of the preassessment activity game,
but this time the words that
are used are the ones that
the kids invented
themselves for their
paragraphs.
-Teacher forms groups of
four or five within the
class. They should be
different groups than those
formed for the preassessment activity to
encourage collaboration
among all the students.
-Teacher writes the words
on the board one at a time.
-Keeps track of points
among groups and awards
prize at the end.
-Compliments students on
their creativity and
encourages them to create
fun sentences for their
vocabulary words.
Post-assessment: -Repeat the game from the pre-assessment session to see how much the kids have
learned from the Roald Dahl vocabulary exercise.
-This game will demonstrate the students newly developed skills in sounding out new words with
phonics and generalizations, defining new terms, and identifying words as nouns, verbs, and
adjectives.
-This time during the game, the teacher should use the words that the kids invented themselves for
their paragraphs.
-Each child will provide a brief description of their word to the class and say it in a sentence while
the rest of the class will race to identify it as a noun, verb, or adjective.
-Students will be graded on their paragraph according to how well they met the criteria.

-One point will be awarded for each word that the students use as a fulfilment of a requirement. For
example, if a student used the term beautiful, it would count as one adjective, and would therefore
be one point. This leads to a total of 25 points.
-A further 5 points will be awarded based upon the students grammar, and another 5 for creativity.
-This leads to the total number of points being out of 35 for the students.
-This assignment will not be graded heavily, as the main point of the exercise is to introduce new
pieces of vocabulary to the kids and to encourage them to enhance their writing with tools such as
nouns, verbs, adjectives.
What worked well/what needs revision: -The students may not enjoy the writing exercise, due to
the large number of restrictions. Perhaps in the future it would be wiser to provide them with an
assignment that is slightly more flexible and allows for more personal freedom.
-It may also be wise to incorporate more group work into the actual activity in order to allow
interaction within the class and to encourage sharing of ideas. This may help the students to learn
more effectively at the same time.
-On the other hand, students should definitely enjoy inventing their own words, as well as studying
the words that Roald Dahl made up.
-Students will also enjoy reading the novel as a class, as it is a light-hearted, funny novel that most
children of this age group love.
References:
Alberta Learning. (2000). Illustrative examples for English language arts: Grade three.
Retrieved from https://education.alberta.ca/media/307134/grade3.pdf
Dahl, R. (1991). Georges marvelous medicine. New York, NY: Penguin Group.