Lesson Plan #2:Grade: 4thSocial Studies Strand: Geography

Submitted By: Corrina Spidell

EDEL 453: Teaching Elementary School Social ScienceNevada State College – Spring 2014Instructor: Karen Powell

Summary of the Lesson Plan: This lesson plan is designed for 4th grade students to introduce important processes that contribute to the shaping of the Earth’s surface, and how

Lesson Plan for Wednesday GEOGRAPHY submitted by: Corrina Spidell

to identify them. This lesson uses the Houghton Mifflin Social Studies Textbook “State & Regions” (p. 16-19).

B. Basic Information: Grade Level: 4th grade Time to Complete this Lesson: approximately 50 minutes Groupings: Whole group reading; individual activity and assessment.

C. Materials: Textbook - Houghton Mifflin Social Studies Textbook

“State & Regions” (p. 16-19) for each student.Vocabulary words (p. 16,17,18) and 30 copies of the

worksheet (p. 19) Computer to show videoColor pencils

D. Objectives: o NV State Social Studies Standards G5.4.2 Identify spatial patterns on a map of Nevada, i.e., deserts, mountains,

population. o Student-Friendly Standards

I can understand why there are different patterns on a map.Nevada State College EDEL 453 - Spring 2014 Karen Powell- Instructor page 2

Lesson Plan for Wednesday GEOGRAPHY submitted by: Corrina Spidell

E. Vocabulary Tectonic Plate – a huge slab of slowly moving rock. (p.16) Erosion – a process of wearing away rock and soil. (p.17) Glacier – a huge mass of slowly moving ice. (p.17) Basin – an area with a low center surrounded by higher land. (p.18)

F. Procedure: 1. Engage students by showing them the YouTube video that takes them over many

of the amazing views of the Grand Canyon. http://youtu.be/ezpqDi42pRM

2. Ask the students to name some facts that they heard or learned from the video, 3-5 should be sufficient. Go over some background knowledge with the class.

3. As a class Read: through pages 16-19, stopping to discuss any salient points with the students. Reading Aloud and Thinking Aloud to share ideas.

4. Introduce Vocabulary: have students complete the worksheet given to them with the vocab words.

5. Challenge students to create their own drawings/sketches to represent the vocabulary words on their worksheets (the worksheet should be blank on the bottom and the back). (p. 17)

6. Clean Up supplies that were used for the sketches, prepare them to be turned in.

G. Assessment: What will you use to measure student understanding?

Students will be asked the following question as a form of informal assessment.

The answer can be found in the text and I would be very curious to know some of the other ideas the class can come up with.

Explain how you will know students understand the concepts from the lesson.I will be able to know that my students understand the concepts based on their answers and drawing on their vocabulary worksheet as well as the answers I get to the assessment question.

Nevada State College EDEL 453 - Spring 2014 Karen Powell- Instructor page 3

Lesson Plan for Wednesday GEOGRAPHY submitted by: Corrina Spidell

H. Closure: Many things shape the Earth and it is beautiful to see all the changes that can and do take place. But we mustn’t forget all of the training we did the last two days. Do a small/informal/out loud pop quiz on concepts and vocabulary words that were learned on Monday and Tuesday.

Reflection: 1. Which part of the lesson do you think will be the easiest for you to teach?

I think that engaging the students will be easy because I will have them watch a video that is short and to the point, it will grab their attention.

2. Which part will be most challenging for you to teach? The assessment will be the most challenging for me, I am not sure if I can expect my students to remember such a small detail from the text but I certainly hope that not too much time will be wasted.

3. How will you follow up or extend this lesson?This lesson can be extended with an earth science lesson on weathering or on the water cycle, or even a geological time scale lesson.

4. What can you do for students who don’t grasp the concepts?Having the students define each vocabulary word on the worksheet given to them and then allowing them to draw the meanings of each of the concepts learned in class will help students that are not grasping concepts easily.

5. Which part of the lesson, if any, do you think might need to change?I really enjoyed this lesson and I think that perhaps the only thing I would change is the fact that the video was from you tube, I would have preferred something from teacher tube.

6. When you were writing this lesson plan, what was the most difficult part?The most difficult part of this lesson was cutting it down to make sure that I only focus on the important information for now. It is quite easy to get carried away in a subject that you like, and because this relates so closely to Earth Science I got very enthusiastic.

Nevada State College EDEL 453 - Spring 2014 Karen Powell- Instructor page 4