Download Big and Small Antonyms

TheatreBridge Lesson Plan Template
Title of Lesson: Big and Small
Date of Actual Lesson: 1/24 & 1/25
Instructor/Author: Liz Hill
Grade: 4th/5th
Arts: Theatre
Content Area/Subject: English Language Arts
Standards:
1. Students will demonstrate the ability to apply theatrical knowledge, principles, and practices to collaborative theatre
presentations
Standards:
1. Comprehension of Literary Text: Students will read,
comprehend, interpret, analyze, and evaluate literary text.
2. Vocabulary
Topic/Goal:
1. Demonstrate knowledge of theatre performance and
production skills in formal and informal presentations
Topic/Goal:
1. Identify and describe the author’s use of language
2. Develop a conceptual understanding of new words
Indicator/Objectives:
1a. Use selected posture, movement, expression, and voice to
enact improvised characters
Indicator/Objectives:
1a. Identify and explain figurative language
1b. Identify and explain language that appeals to the senses
and feelings
2a. Identify and explain word relationships to determine
meaning of words
Vocabulary:
copy/imitate
opposite/contrast
neutral
Vocabulary:
simile
antonym
compare
synonym
contrast
like or as
Materials:
Quick As A Cricket by Audrey Wood
sentence strips with pairs of antonyms written on them
Background/Review:
1/24: read Quick as a Cricket and discuss the concept of simile (previously introduced but review needed)
1/24: Play theatre game big and small leading to include more words than big and small, go through the book
Procedure (Introduction, Modeling, Guided Practice, Independent Practice, Closure):
Introduction:
• Review what a simile is and the concept of comparing two things that are not alike;
• Refer to the book to talk about how some of the comparisons are made (ask students for their favorite one) and discuss
how the books is set up as antonyms
Modeling:
• Play the game big/small again as a quick review – model being as big as you can be and ways to be as small as you can
be; now we are going to play an alteration to the game – model with one student facing the teacher and that student
becomes as big as they can, while the teacher does the opposite and matches in degree of “severity” to the student. Guide the student to move from big to small and the teacher needs to move as well from small to big
Guided practice: • Using premade sentence strips with antonym ready words on them, have one student choose a card and show that
antonym while their partner does the opposite. • Guide students to thinking about the degree of which the person is big/small/hot/cold etc by watching how the person
is acting, facial expression, etc; after students have moved through the degrees,
• Have them freeze and think about what word might best describe their current state (if the beginning word was happy
– are they just happy, or are they excited, are they thrilled, etc) to develop a bank of synonyms
Independent practice:
•
•
Allow students to attempt several antonym pairs together creating degrees of each antonym;
Have students talk about how the words are related to each other – more/less than, opposites of, etc – and have
students freeze and think about the word that might best describe what degree they are at.
Closure: • Using the premade sentence strips with words, match up all the antonym pairs; ask students to think about the degree
movement and what does the degree show with respect to the word (this may require some prompting)
Assessment:
teamwork
ability to think about the antonym and execute the imitation/contrast when appropriate
matching the antonyms provided
Reflection (You may want to keep this in your private notes):