Before you teach — read this first
Grade 1 · Lesson 6 — Who or what — and what they do
U0 · Square One · What a sentence is (2 of 4) · 10–15 minutes · 18 slides ·
Launch → I do → We do → You do → Closure
What this lesson is
Yesterday a sentence was a whole thought; today the children look inside that thought and find it has two jobs in it — a part that tells who or what, and a part that tells what they do. The words subject and predicate are deliberately not used; they arrive in Grade 2 as new names for this same idea, and introducing the terminology now would add a vocabulary burden to a conceptual one. What you set up today that matters for years is the two-hand cue: left hand for who or what, right hand for what they do. Be consistent with it, because an empty right hand is about to become the single most useful correction you own.
Why it matters — say this in your own words, about ten seconds.
“We learn language so we can teach people about Allah.”
A different reason every lesson, on purpose. It is not on a slide and it
is not a script — if you have a better reason today, use yours. What should land is the
idea, not a sentence they can recite.
Recall — sixty seconds, before anything new
Retrieve: What a word is. Ask for it before you introduce anything, take the answers from boards rather than from hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on. This is the middle of the launch: context, then this, then why it matters. Only what today leans on — a minute spent retrieving something unrelated costs the same and buys nothing, and the child who cannot recall the prerequisite is the one you will lose in the I-do.
How it goes
- Quizzes come back at the top of the lesson, quickly and without ceremony — a word of praise, no scores read out. Then two thumb items on fresh sentences, ninety seconds, to retrieve yesterday.
- You name the new idea with both hands already in play: every sentence tells us who or what — left hand — and what they do — right hand. Use those two hands for the rest of the lesson without exception.
- The I-do takes The bird flew. apart cleanly, and then does something more important. You put up The little red car., ask who or what, get a confident answer, and then ask what they do — and hold your right hand out empty and leave it there. That silence is the lesson. This phrase is the hardest fragment at this age precisely because it names something real and therefore feels finished.
- The We-do asks for only half the answer in writing — the who-or-what part on boards — and takes the doing part as a whole-class answer aloud. Halving the writing keeps the pace up and keeps the focus on the split rather than on handwriting.
- In the You-do they draw a line between the two parts. Model the cut once in the air with a flat hand. On the longest item, a line one word out is fine; the concept is the division, not the boundary to the letter.
- Close with The horse ran. — a sentence they have not met, deliberately, because a closure item they practiced on Monday measures memory rather than mastery.