SIOP Lesson Plan

Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills! The Forty-Niners Gold Rush.

Theme: Theres Gold in Them Thar Hills!
Lesson Topic: The forty-niners Gold Rush
Grade Level: Fifth Grade

Georgia Performance Standards (Domain, and Standard)

Domain: Social Studies
Standard: SS5H3: The student will describe how life changed in America at the turn of the
century.

ELL Proficiency Standard (WIDA Can Do Descriptors):
Writing Level 5 (Bridging): For the given level of English language proficiency and with
visual, graphic, or interactive support through Level 4, English language learners can process
or produce the language needed to: produce extended responses of original text approaching
grade level; apply content-based information to new contexts; connect or integrate personal
experiences with literature/content; and create grade-level stories or reports.

Objectives

Content:
1. Students will be able to use prior knowledge to make connections between what they know
about the forty-niners and the gold rush.
2. Students will be able to gain an understanding of what it is to pan for gold by using tools
similar to what the forty-niners used during the gold rush to pan for gold.

Language:
1. Students will use the information from the pictures of the mining equipment to orally
describe each tool before and while they are mining for gold.
2. Students will use group discussions to answer higher-order questions such as, What are
some complications of mining?
3. Students will use a Venn diagram to summarize in writing the process of panning for gold
used by the forty-niners.

Learning Strategies
Cognitive Strategies: Venn Diagram
Social/Affective Strategies: Group Discussion
Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA)

Key Vocabulary: Materials:
Brush A device composed of bristles
typically set into a handle and used for
sweeping, smoothing, scrubbing, or painting.

Crevice Tool Any small tool used to scrape
Word Definition Vocabulary Cards
(Visuals) - Pictures of the following
mining equipment:
o Brush
gold from rocks in crevices.

Gravel A comprehensive term applied to
the water-worn mass of detrital material
making up a placer deposit. Placer gravels
are sometimes arbitrarily described as
"fine" gravel, "heavy" (large) gravel,
"boulder" gravel, etc.

Nugget A water-worn piece of native
gold.

Pick A heavy wooden handled iron or steel
tool pointed at one or both ends.

Shaft a long, narrow often vertical tunnel
sunk into the earth.

Sieve a device with meshes or perforations
through which finer particles of a mixture
(as of ashes, flour, or sand) of various sizes
may be passed to separate them from
coarser ones, through which the liquid may
be drained from liquid-containing material,
or through which soft materials may be
forced for reduction to fine particles.
(ELL Friendly Definition: a tool that has
many small holes and that is used to
separate smaller particles from larger ones
or solids from liquids).

Slate: A fine-grained rock formed by the
compression of clay, shale, etc., that tends
to split along parallel cleavage planes and
to form a rough, platy bedrock, well suited
for the retention of placer gold.

o Crevice Tool
o Gravel
o Nugget
o Pick
o Sieve
o Slate
o Sluice Boxes
(Realia) Gold Panning Tools
o Strainer
o Screwdriver
o Small Hammer
o Small Brush
o Pan
o Fake Gold Nuggets
o Gravel
(Hands on Materials) Venn Diagram

Lesson Sequence

Building Background/Motivation: (Hook? Why are students learning this material? What is the real-
world connection?)
Hook: Gold was plentiful in the year 1848 and the miners could obtain gold through
picking it up off the ground, scratching it out of the ravines using their picks and crevice
tools, and brushing it out of dry streambeds and gulches. By the end of 1848 and the
beginning of 1849 digging or panning became the new way of mining. The miners, who
became known as the forty-niners, would fill their gold-bearing dirt or gravel into a
shallow pan and hold it underwater while the current would wash away any dirt and
gravel revealing the heavier gold at the bottom of the pan. This lesson will review who
the forty-niners were and introduce you to the creative way they panned for gold.

Motivation Strategy: The teacher will explain to the students that they are going to
become forty-niners for the day and see if they can strike it rich and find gold in them
thar hills. The teacher will say, Today we are going to travel back in time to 1849 and
see if we can make a living the way the forty-niners did. We are going to see if we can
strike it rich find gold in the hills of California. For today you will no longer by students
sitting in a classroom in Georgia, but you will each become one of the nearly ten
thousand individuals that traveled to California hoping to find gold.

Presentation: (How is the new material being introduced? Strategies? Scaffolding? Steps in lesson)(Language
and content objectives, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, feedback)
KEY
TW = Teacher Will
SW = Student Will

Scaffolding Strategies:
1. Think aloud will be used prior to students completing the Venn diagram and to
answer the higher order questions in the meaningful activity. TW say, Let me
give you an example. If I had to live as a forty-niner I might base my mining
choice on where I lived and the tools available to me. For example, say I could
not afford a pick axe and some crevice tools, I might decide to make a pan out of
an old scrap piece of metal and some mesh to use for panning. So you can see
how the materials around you as well as their availability can shape the decisions
you make.
2. Pre-Teaching Vocabulary will be used with the Word Definition Vocabulary
Cards to cover the vocabulary words for this lesson. TW allow students to read
the definitions off of the Smart Board out loud and then ask students to match the
correct picture with the its definition, ensuring to give them enough response time
to discuss their response with the class. By front-loading the vocabulary words,
students will have a better understanding of the way they are used in the lesson.
3. Visual Aids are used throughout the entire lesson to serve as a visual cue for
students when the vocabulary words are used during the lesson. The visual aids
in this lesson consist of the visual pictures of mining tools as well as the realia
materials listed in the materials section.

Opener for the lesson:
1. TW begin the lesson by handing out the Vocabulary Card pages.
2. TW review vocabulary words by using the Pre-Teaching Vocabulary technique listed
under scaffolding strategies. Students will fill in their Vocabulary Cards with the correct
definitions. Once they have written in their definitions they will cut out their cards and
staple them together to form a book. The book will be retained for use throughout the
Gold Rush unit.
3. TW review with students how the forty-niners came to California. TW say,
Remember that after James Marshall first discovered gold in what is now known
as Sacramento, thousands of people began packing up their bags and heading out
west to California to claim a little patch of what they thought was Heaven. People
came from all walks of life to strike it rich. These travelers and soon to be miners
came to be known as the forty-niners.
4. TW tell students, Today we are going to learn two of the methods the forty-
niners used to pan for gold.
5. TW have use higher-order questions to get students interested in the process of
panning for gold. TW ask, Why do you think it is important to have more than
one way to find gold? After giving students enough response time and allowing
several students the opportunity to answer, the TW then ask, If the forty-niners
were not wealthy people, how did they obtain their mining tools? If they made
them, how did they come by the materials to make them?

Focused Instruction:
1. TW hold up each of the tools listed in the materials section under realia and ask
students to identify them by their name along with a brief definition. This will
serve as a vocabulary review.
2. TW draw students attention to the bulletin board that has several different
pictures of mining equipment that was used by the forty-niners. TW ask students
if they know their proper names and call on students as a class to verbally give the
name of each tool illustrated in the picture. These pictures will remain on the
bulletin board for the remainder of the unit on the gold rush.
3. TW explain to students, In the beginning, the forty-niners used a method called
panning to search for gold nuggets, which is water-worn piece of gold. They
would scoop their pans that had screened bottoms, which were also called? Does
anyone know the vocabulary word for this tool? Thats right, they were called
sieves. They would rock their sieves back and forth letting all of the finer sand
fall through the screen while the gold flakes would remain.
4. TW demonstrate the process of panning a sieve.
5. TW say, After a while, the gold in the streams became sparse and the miners had
to find other ways to find gold. They turned to the land that was around the
rivers. The forty-niners would use their picks (A heavy wooden handled iron or
steel tool pointed at one or both ends.) and axes to remove the gold that was
contained in the rocks. These shafts (a long, narrow often vertical tunnel sunk into
the earth) would sometimes reach 40 feet long.
6. TW continue to explain that, Forty-niners would use their crevice tools (any
small tool used to scrape gold from rocks in crevices) to scrape through the slate (A fine-
grained rock formed by the compression of clay, shale, etc.). Then they would
use their brushes to scrape away any excess slate or gravel.
7. TW then demonstrate using the crevice tool, brush, pick, and hammer to break
apart a small piece of gravel.
8. TW say, Now that I have demonstrated the two most common gold mining
practices of the forty-niners, you will have an opportunity to pan for your old gold
using both methods. (See the Meaningful Activity below I Found Gold in
Georgia! Once you have completed the activity you will remain in your groups to
complete your Venn diagram.
9. TW explain, To complete the Venn diagram you will need to remember the two
methods used by the forty-niners to mine for gold that you recreated today. I
want you to choose one of those methods and write the pros and cons for the
method that you chose.

Practice and Application: (Meaningful activities, interaction, strategies, practice and application, feedback)
Meaningful Activity Realia:
I Found Gold in Georgia!
1. TW break students into groups of three.
2. TW give each group a:
a. pan
b. sieve (strainer)
c. small hammer
d. small screwdriver
e. brush
f. gravel
g. fake gold nuggets
3. SW then practice panning for gold using the pan and water by rocking the pan
back and forth in a slow motion. SW then use the sieve (strainer) to cradle rock
for gold.
4. SW then use their hammer, and screwdriver to break apart rock like the forty-
niners to find smaller pieces of gold. SW then use their brush to dust off any
excess gravel from the gold nuggets.
5. TW walk around the room asking students to name the tools that they are using.
(Another chance to review vocabulary).
6. TW say, Now that you have had the opportunity to become a forty-niner and
strike it rich, what method of mining did you find the easiest to use?
7. TW then as a higher-order question, If you had to go back and time and live as a
forty-niner, how would you decide which method you would use and why would
you use that method? Teacher will use the Think Aloud scaffolding strategy to
help students with this question. (See Think Aloud under Scaffolding Strategies
for directions.

Review and Assessment: (Review of objectives and vocabulary, assess learning, measurement tools)
(Review objectives and vocabulary, assess learning)
To review the vocabulary the teacher will have students complete the Vocabulary
Assessment Sheet. The best way to assess the students understanding of how to make an
inference would be to review their Making Inferences Worksheet and their Making
Inferences/Predictions Chart. Students should successfully be able to use their prior
knowledge along with the book to make proper inferences. If students are struggling
with the concept of inferences, review the lesson on making predictions to ensure that
students have an appropriate level of understanding the concept of making predictions.



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Forty-Niner Mining Methods
Venn Diagram

The mining method I chose was: ________________________________

Pro Con