Monument Field Trip: Dayton, Nevada

Unit Plan: Understanding Symbolism in Social Studies

Lesson Plan for Friday Grade: 1st Social Studies Strand: History

Submitted By: Patty Medeiros

EDEL 453: Teaching Elementary School Social Science Nevada State College Spring 2014 Instructor: Karen Powell

Lesson Plan for Friday

Strand: History

submitted by: Patty Medeiros

B. Summary of the Lesson Plan: This is a field trip lesson designed to engage students in the active learning of local, historical sites/monuments through hands-on exploration. This lesson uses strategies from Integrating Language Arts and Social Studies (p. 55 61). C. Basic Information: Grade Level: 1st grade Time to Complete this Lesson: approximately 50 minutes Groupings: Whole class review, partner exploration groups, independent assessment

D. Materials: Field trip permission slips Student clip boards Pencils/pens/paper Student copies of Field Trip Data Sheet (located at bottom of lesson plan) E. Objectives: o NV State Social Studies Standards o H1.1.3 Listen to histories of important local landmarks that create a sense of community among citizens H1.1.3 I can explain how historical events in my community relate to the local monument

Student-Friendly Standards

F. Vocabulary (Unit Review) symbol anything that stands for or represents something else honor to hold in high respect monument a statue or building erected as a tribute to someone who has died memorial a monument, a marker, a statue landmark a distinctive building or geographic marker

G. Procedure: 1. Prior to departure, review with students some of the historical facts they learned about their community the previous day. What do they anticipate they will see at the monument site? How do they think they will feel at the site?
EDEL 453 - Spring 2014 Karen Powell- Instructor page 2

Nevada State College

Lesson Plan for Friday

Strand: History

submitted by: Patty Medeiros

2. Review expectations for the trip including: Proper behavior Maintaining partner exploration groups Field assignment Recording of data

3. Students should bring along their clip boards with their monument drawing from the previous day and several sheets of blank paper for recording data/observations. 4. Once at the site, students will carefully examine the monument and compare it to the drawing of their own monument. These observations should be recorded while on site. Students should also try and identify elements of the monument that reflect some of the history they have learned about regarding their community and the time of its founding. 5. Engage students in deeper exploration of the monument site by having them think about the historical events that took place in their community. What do they think life was like back then? Would they have liked living in this community then? What kinds of struggles do they think the people had then?

H. Assessment: What will you use to measure student understanding? Field Trip Data Sheet: Upon return to the classroom students will complete the data sheet in which they will be expected to illustrate what they saw, write about what they learned, and write about what they wonder about now that they have visited a monument. Explain how you will know students understand the concepts from the lesson. Students will produce a drawing that accurately depicts the monument/monument site visited and will include writing about several details and facts from the lesson. I. Closure: Reflect on the monument visit. What are some things students learned about? Was there anything that surprised them? What kinds of feelings did they have there? What are some of the similarities students found between the monument they created and the actual monument? What are some of the differences?

J. Reflection: 1. Which part of the lesson do you think will be the easiest for you to teach? Since this portion of the unit is mostly based on student exploration with minimal assistance from the teacher to guide students text-to-world connections I think the hands-on field trip will be the easiest to teach.

Nevada State College

EDEL 453 - Spring 2014

Karen Powell- Instructor

page 3

Lesson Plan for Friday

Strand: History

submitted by: Patty Medeiros

2. Which part will be most challenging for you to teach? Maintaining student behavior outside of the classroom and ensuring students stay focused on the reason for the visit to the monument might be the most challenging part of the lesson. 3. How will you follow up or extend this lesson? This lesson would be a great introductory to a more in-depth study of the community and many of the first grade history standards. 4. What can you do for students who dont grasp the concepts? Students who dont grasp the concepts of this lesson may need more language support to help them link the vocabulary previously studied with the visuals they are now encountering. To help these students, guides or brochures from the monument site may scaffold learning by connecting vocabulary with images. 5. Which part of the lesson, if any, do you think might need to change? I worry the allotted 50 minute time slot may not be enough time for the trip and I may need to break the lesson into 2 parts; the first part being the lesson review and the second part being the actual trip. The monument is local, however and would only require a short bus ride of about 8 10 minutes each way. 6. When you were writing this lesson plan, what was the most difficult part? The most difficult part of this lesson was trying to determine how much actual writing and recording I wanted students to do while on-site.

Nevada State College

EDEL 453 - Spring 2014

Karen Powell- Instructor

page 4

Lesson Plan for Friday

Strand: History

submitted by: Patty Medeiros

Name: _____________________

Field Trip Data Sheet

Today I visited _______________________________________________________________________ . I saw this:

I learned that ________________________________________________________________________

I wonder _____________________________________________________________________________

Nevada State College

EDEL 453 - Spring 2014

Karen Powell- Instructor

page 5