MORPHOLOGY LESSON PLAN

Language: Students will listen and talk to one another about the comparison words as they word to create new words and sort objects using the words given to them. Students will read words in order to sort objects accordingly. Students will write new words using suffixes.

Content: Students will categorize and sort objects by using the suffixes –er and –est.

Learning Strategies: Students will learn to listen and converse with one another. Students will learn how to add endings to words to change their meaning. Students will learn how to compare and sort objects.

Key Vocabulary: tall, taller, tallest, big, bigger, biggest, long, longer, longest, clean, cleaner, cleanest, high, higher, highest, small, smaller, smallest, quiet, quieter, quietest (list will continue based on each independent work task)

Materials: whiteboards, dry erase markers, Pig, Pigger, Piggest by Rick Walton, anchor chart, base word and ending cards, construction paper, various objects from the classroom

Motivation:
The teacher will begin by calling three students (of varying heights) to the front of the room. She will then tell the rest of the class that she would like to place these volunteers in height order and ask the students to help her place them. When the students have been placed the teacher will ask the students to tell her why they placed the students in the order that they did, eliciting from them verbal acknowledgment and familiarity with vocabulary such as taller than or tallest.

Presentation:
The teacher will explain to the students that today they are going to be learning how to categorize certain objects using two very special endings; er and est. She will explain that these words help to compare things with one another, such as the height of three classmates.

Teacher will read the story Pig, Pigger, Piggest by Rick Walton. As the teacher reads the story she will point out when she sees words with these two root endings and how those words are relating to the pictures and the comparison of the three pig brothers.

After having completed the read aloud the teacher will ask students to think back to the story, to brainstorm some of the comparison words they heard. Using the words from the story, teacher will place these words into an anchor chart with three categories: base words, -er more than and –est the most. Teacher will begin by modeling with one words and then students will chime in, to generate a list of words and their endings.

Practice and Application:
Students will go off to work in three independent groups:

Entering: Students will be given a bucket full of classroom items. With the teacher’s assistance students will review the vocabulary words for each item and some describing words. Then, using the objects presented to them the students will categorize them using four basic root words: big, small, heavy, light. Students will sort the objects accordingly and compare them by using the root word with it’s corresponding ending.

Emerging: Students will have base word cards and various pictures with three comparison objects on them. Using the base cards students will read the word and sort them with the corresponding pictures. Then, using their knowledge of –er and –est they will write underneath each picture the corresponding comparison adjective. This group will work together in pairs.

Transitioning: Students will be given a long piece of manila or construction paper, that will be folded in order to create three “windows.” The students will choose a word from a list of base words (ex: fast, cold, tall, clean, etc.). After having selected the word students will create their own comparative diagram, where they will draw, for example, something that is taller, something that is taller and something that is tallest. Underneath each drawing students will write the words, using the base and suffixes or endings as they will be known to the students.

Review and Assessment:
Teacher will give all students a whiteboard before returning to the carpet. Once students are back together the teacher will show the students three pictures of something or someone that can be compared. The teacher will give the students the base word and then ask them to write on their whiteboards the word that matches first with the second picture and then with the last picture. Students will show their responses to the teacher so that she can assess for understanding. Students will do this same activity one more time but this time the pictures will not be in base, -er and –est order so the teacher will simply point to the picture and students will have to determine whether it is an –er or an –est ending.

Extension:
Students will create comparison adjectives books.
Students will place comparison adjective cards on various objects in the room to identify them as big, bigger, biggest, etc.