Daily Lesson Plan — Unit 9

Choose Your Sports

Subject: English | Class: 3 | Series: Leeds (SNC 2020)

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Overview

This unit features a poem by Martin Dejnicki about choosing sports — baseball, soccer, basketball — encouraging children to turn off video games and play outside with friends. Language skills include vocabulary (turn off, choose, around), comprehension of poetry, alphabetical order (first and second letter), prepositions, capitalization rules (proper nouns, days, months), punctuation marks (full stop, apostrophe, exclamation mark), gapped summary writing, and a dialogue about expressing likes/dislikes about sports (hockey).

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Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, students will be able to:

• Use pre-reading strategies to predict words in a poem by looking at a picture/title
• Apply critical thinking using intensive reading strategies
• Read/scan specific factual information to answer short questions
• Know about different types of sports
• Recognize stress and intonation patterns in statements and questions
• Use alphabetical order (first and second alphabet) to arrange words
• Use capitalization rules for proper nouns, days of the week, and months
• Recognize and apply capitalization to initial letters of proper nouns
• Use punctuation: full stop, apostrophe, exclamation mark
• Use summary skills to provide missing words in a gapped summary
• Use appropriate expressions to express likes and dislikes
• Revise written work for layout, legibility, and punctuation

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Day 1: Pre-Reading and Reading the Poem (40 minutes)

Materials

• Textbook pages 51-52
• Pictures of different sports
• Board and markers

Warm-Up (10 minutes)

1. Pre-reading: "Read the title of the poem and guess four words related to it."
2. Ask: "What is your favourite sport? Why do you like it?"
3. Show pictures of baseball, soccer, basketball, and cricket.

Reading the Poem (25 minutes)

1. Read the poem aloud with expression:

   "Let us turn off our video games, / And run outside; / From many sports, / We may choose and decide.

   Baseball, soccer, / And basketball are fun, / Let's grab some friends, / And play in the sun.

   In baseball, you will be, / Running around. / When you hit the ball, / It's a beautiful sound.

   In soccer, you pass the ball, / Using your feet, / Drinks lots of water, / And watch out for the heat.

   In basketball, the best sound, / Is a swish, / Making ten in a row, / Is a wonderful wish.

   Whatever sports, / You decide to play, / Enjoy them with friends, / Each and every day."

2. While-reading: "Why should we play sports?" "Do sports keep you healthy?"

3. Students read the poem aloud together, then in groups.

4. Discuss rhyming words: outside/decide, fun/sun, around/sound, feet/heat, swish/wish, play/day.

Wrap-Up (5 minutes)

1. Post-reading: "What sports make you more fit?" "Do you like the poem? Why?"
2. Students share their favourite sport from the poem.

Differentiation

• Support: Act out each sport as you read the relevant stanza.
• Extension: Students write their own verse about cricket or another sport.

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Day 2: Comprehension, Vocabulary, and Alphabetical Order (40 minutes)

Materials

• Textbook pages 53-54
• Notebooks

Warm-Up (5 minutes)

1. Recite the poem together once more.

Words Treasure (5 minutes)

1. Teach vocabulary:
   • turn off — switch off
   • choose — select, pick
   • around — on all sides

Comprehension (10 minutes)

1. Answer questions:
   • Where does the poet want the reader to go? (Run outside)
   • What should the reader decide? (Which sport to play)
   • What does one do in baseball? (Running around, hit the ball)
   • What choice of games is offered to the reader? (Baseball, soccer, basketball)
   • Which sound does the poet enjoy in basketball? (A swish)

Alphabetical Order (15 minutes)

1. First letter alphabetical order: apple, bus, cat, dog — arranged by first letter.
2. Second letter alphabetical order: When words start with the same letter, look at the second letter. Example: ball, bell, box, bus.
3. Practice: Arrange in alphabetical order observing the second letter:
   • plank, press, panic, punch, perch → panic, perch, plank, press, punch

Wrap-Up (5 minutes)

1. Quick alphabetical order practice with 4 more word sets.

Differentiation

• Support: Use alphabet cards for ordering practice.
• Extension: Students arrange 8 words in alphabetical order using second letter.

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Day 3: Prepositions, Capitalization, and Punctuation (40 minutes)

Materials

• Textbook pages 54-56
• Notebooks

Warm-Up (5 minutes)

1. Show a book on, under, and beside a desk. Ask students to describe where it is.

Prepositions (10 minutes)

1. Explain: A preposition is a word that shows a relationship between two things.
2. Practice with the bedroom picture from the textbook — describe using prepositions:
   • The guitar is _____ the bed. (beside/near)
   • The helmet is _____ the bed. (on/under)
   • The toys are _____ the bed. (above)
   • The gloves are _____ the bed. (under/beside)
   • The books are _____ the school bag. (in/beside)

Capitalization (10 minutes)

1. Rules:
   • Capitalize the first word of a sentence: "The children are at school."
   • Capitalize proper nouns, days of the week, and months: Aden, Friday, January.
2. Practice correcting sentences.

Punctuation Marks (10 minutes)

1. Full stop (.) — at the end of a sentence: "We are best friends."
2. Apostrophe (') — to show possession: "The children's toys are in the box."
3. Exclamation mark (!) — for strong feelings: "Oh my Allah!" "How tragic!" "What a pretty doll!"
4. Practice — correct the sentences:
   • "uranus is the coldest planet in the solar system" → "Uranus is the coldest planet in the solar system."
   • "my sons name is hashir" → "My son's name is Hashir."
   • "the boys shirt is dirty" → "The boy's shirt is dirty."
   • "hey stop playing tricks on me" → "Hey! Stop playing tricks on me!"
   • "hurrah our summer vacation will start in may" → "Hurrah! Our summer vacation will start in May."

Wrap-Up (5 minutes)

1. Students write 3 sentences with correct capitalization and punctuation.

Differentiation

• Support: Provide a capitalization and punctuation rules chart.
• Extension: Students find and correct errors in a given paragraph.

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Day 4: Gapped Summary and Creative Writing (40 minutes)

Materials

• Textbook page 56
• Notebooks

Warm-Up (5 minutes)

1. Explain: "A summary is a shorter version of the original text."

Gapped Summary (20 minutes)

1. Read the gapped summary about a Frog and Rabbit story.
2. Word bank: seeds, garden, hard work, loudly, garden, asleep, poem, nice garden.
3. Students fill in the blanks to complete the summary.
4. Read the completed summary aloud together.

Poem Writing Activity (15 minutes)

1. Students write a short verse (4-6 lines) about their favourite sport.
2. Encourage rhyming if possible.
3. Remind about capitalization at the start of each line and punctuation.

Differentiation

• Support: Provide sentence starters for the poem.
• Extension: Students write two verses about two different sports.

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Day 5: Oral Communication — Sports Dialogue and Review (40 minutes)

Materials

• Textbook page 57

Dialogue Practice (15 minutes)

1. Read the dialogue:
   • Farid: Asslaam-o-Alaikum! Asim.
   • Asim: Wa Alaikum Assalam! Farid.
   • Farid: Do you like playing hockey?
   • Asim: Yes, I like it a lot. Because hockey is our national game. And you?
   • Farid: So do I. Hockey is fantastic exercise. It is good for fitness.
   • Asim: Hmm! That is great.
2. Students read in pairs, then create their own dialogues about their favourite sports.
3. Teaching tip: "Playing sports is an excellent way to boost health and fitness."

Unit Review (20 minutes)

1. Recite the poem one final time with actions.
2. Review: vocabulary, alphabetical order, prepositions, capitalization, punctuation, gapped summary.
3. Quick written quiz.

Wrap-Up (5 minutes)

1. Students share their favourite sport and why.

Differentiation

• Support: Provide dialogue templates.
• Extension: Students write a paragraph about the importance of sports.