History Lesson Plan

a) Basic Information
Grade level: 7th grade World History
Number of students in class/group: 28
Time allotted: 50 minutes
Lesson topic/title: Fluting & Stone Age Toddlers

b) Goals/Rationale
Student learning goals: For the students to learn how fluting and stone age toddlers
helped form the culture and perception of prehistoric places in human society.
Rationale: This is important because in their future studies, students must be able to
analyze artifacts, secondary sources, technology, and other variety of sources to
understand why the past influenced the present. Also, in their life, many of them may
have jobs one day that enables them to analyze some kind of source from the past, such
as DNA analysis, and make a claim about that source and use evidence from the past to
back it up.

c) Learning Objectives/Standards and Benchmarks

Objective 1: The students will be able to describe what fluting and stone age toddlers are;
what time period were they prevalent, where they were prevalent, and why they were
important.
Objective 2: By the end of the lesson, the students will be able orally analyze and analyze
in writing a variety of sources, such as an artifact or secondary source, and make a claim
about how the source helped our human society while backing it up with evidence.
Standards: 7 – H1.2.1 Explain how historians use a variety of sources to explore the past
(e.g., artifacts, primary and secondary sources including narratives, technology, historical
maps, visual/mathematical quantitative data, radiocarbon dating, DNA analysis).
7 – G2.2.3: Analyze how culture and experience influence people’s perception of places
and regions.
Facts, concepts, & generalizations: See instructional procedures and link to Prezi

d) Teacher Preparation
Teacher Knowledge: I need to know exactly what fluting and stone toddlers are, why
they are important, when they were relevant, and the impact they have had on our human
society in order to teach this lesson effectively. I will prepare for this lesson by practicing
teaching to a group of my friends, researching the information to validate its accuracy,
making copies of any handouts, and most importantly, talking with my placement teacher
so I can receive any advice or different ideas from him.
Materials/Resources: A computer, the Internet, the projector, the whiteboard, pictures of
fluting columns/finger fluting, my Prezi, 29 copies of the “Stone Age Toddlers May Have
Had Art Lessons” worksheet, and a notebook/pencil.

e) Assessment Plan
Prior Knowledge: The day before this lesson, the students will have been taught and
introduced to cave art, which relates nicely to fluting and stone age toddlers. I plan on

1
 accessing their prior knowledge by bringing up the content from the day before and
asking them some questions about cave art as a class. If there are some misconceptions
that they still have, I will spend some time at the beginning of my class addressing them
and clearing them up before I begin my lesson.
Formative/Summative Assessment: I will know that the students met my learning
objectives during the lesson (formative) if they are able to answer my questions for each
different topic: If you look at the instructional procedures below, there is usually a
question proposed under each slide that I will ask the students. These comprehension
questions will reflect objective #1. The students will raise their hands and I mix up who I
pick. I will also pick the students that do not raise their hands. I will also periodically
have the students give me a “thumbs up” if they are understanding what I’m saying or a
“thumbs down” if they do not understand. I will be constantly checking body language
from the students, making sure they are paying attention, peeking at their notes, etc. On
slide 7 of the Prezi, I will assess the students’ knowledge in meeting objective #2 by
asking them to make three observations of each picture I show them: What do you see?
Who do you think drew these images? Why do you think they drew them? The students
will record their answers to these questions in their notebooks and after giving them a
few minutes for each picture, I will call on the students again to share their observations.
I will read over their notebooks after the lesson as well to assess the quality of their
observations. After the lesson (summative), I will give them a handout on Stone Age
Toddlers and have them read it with their “go-teach” partners. At the end of the article,
there are questions (see attached worksheet) asking them to make a claim from the article
then provide evidence to support it. They will answer those questions and I will assess
them after they turn them in to see if they met the learning objectives.

f) Instructional Procedures
Opening (5 minutes, Slide 1 and 2):
 Start with slide 1
 To catch the students’ attention, tell them today you will be using a Prezi,
which in my opinion, is a much more engaging version of Microsoft
PowerPoint
 Go to slide 2
 Ask the students these three questions about cave art to check their prior
knowledge: 1. What is an archaeologist? 2. What did men, women, and
children draw images of in the stone age? 3. What tools did they use to
make these images?
 Have them record their answers in their notebooks and raise their hands if
they have any questions
 If they have any questions, I will spend a few minutes clearing up what
they do not understand
 Tell the students to take notes on the information I teach them so they will
stay actively engaged during the entire lesson
Body (30 minutes, Slides 3-7):
 Go to slide 3
 Introduce the topic of “fluting” in terms of architecture

2
  Describe when this style of architecture began, what society(s) started it,
what was the purpose behind it, and why it is important to us now
 Ask the students to explain to me why the architects composed the
engravings in the columns vertically, not horizontally, using the two
pictures as examples
 Go to slide 4
 Explain that this style of architecture heavily influenced the development
of other societies and shows the logic, order, and beauty the Greeks placed
into their buildings
 Use the pictures as examples to how “fluting” is still used today; the first
picture is the Federal Hall National Memorial in New York City (built in
1842) and the second is a modern day house
 Go to slide 5
 Describe what a stone age toddler is and transition to how toddlers used
finger fluting in their cave arts in prehistoric times
 Explain that archeologists are not certain what the images represent, but
offer them some ideas using the two pictures as examples
 Go to slide 6
 Tell the students they are about to watch a video that relates to the topic of
finger fluting and stone age toddlers, as well as to their prior knowledge of
cave art
 Tell the students you want them to make three observations while
watching the video, which can include: what they see, who they think
drew these images (a child or man/woman), and why they think they drew
these pictures
 Describe what the video includes: ten pictures of different, famous
pictures of cave art throughout the world
 Go to slide 7
 Stop the video at the picture of each drawing and have the students write
down in their notebooks three different observations that they perceived
 Call on the students to share their observations and back it up with
evidence to support it
 After each picture, read to the students the short description describing in
detail the history of the specific cave art so they can see whether they were
correct or not and they will be able to see a different perspective as well
 Try to get through at least five pictures, but depending on the amount of
time left, try to get through all ten
Closure (15 minutes, “Stone Age Toddlers May Have Had Art Lessons” handout)
 Have a student pass out the handouts of an article talking about how stone
age toddlers may have had a form of art lessons in an attempt to develop
their creative skills in cave art
 Have them read the article with their “go-teach” partners, keeping in mind
the two questions written at the top: 1. What did the archaeologists see in
the caves? 2. How did they study what they found to make their claims
(best guesses)?

3
  After reading the article, make it clear with the students that they will need
to provide evidence for each claim written on the back of the article
 Communicate to them that they can draw this evidence from the article
and work with their partner to figure out why the author may have stated
those claims
 Finish your instruction by stating that if they do not finish the questions in
time, they will take it home for homework
 The homework worksheet will be their exit slip out of class
 Make it clear to them that you will walk around while they are working
and answer any questions they may have
 Reiterate to the students that the one thing you want them to take away
from this lesson is that if you make a claim or observation about
something, you need to provide evidence or some kind of explanation to
support that claim or observation
 When the class period is up, have the students turn in their notebooks and
dismiss class

*The amount of time for each section is flexible and may change*

Differentiation: There are a couple students in the classroom that have a form of ADHD
and autism. To accommodate this, I plan on having many visual elements added to my
lesson like pictures, videos, etc., talking slowly and taking my time on in-depth topics,
and having them work with their partners because I have noticed through past
experiences that they work more efficiently that way. If I notice through my assessments
that they are still struggling learning the material, I may spend time with them after class
or notify their special education teacher.

Link to lesson presentation:

http://prezi.com/4hvlbepsvlnl/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy. The reader
can use this link as reference to see the exact facts, generalizations, pictures, and videos I
will be teaching the students and questions I will be asking them.

g) Reflection & Evaluation

Teaching: I thought the lesson as a whole went very well. More specifically, I thought the
connections and interactions I made with the students was what I was hoping for. During
the lecture portion of the lesson, I often asked them questions about why the Greeks
would have made the columns a certain way and what types of tools stone age toddlers
would have used to make these drawings. They were very responsive to these questions
and used their prior knowledge on the Greek society as well as cave art to provide logical
answers to them. In addition, during the video portion of the lesson, almost every student
in the entire class raised their hand at one point to make an observation about the
image(s) they saw and provide evidence to support it. In the future, I would have liked to
have had more time at the end to focus on the article worksheet. There were some
disruptions at the beginning of class where a student couldn’t find his/her notebook as
well as a student coming in late. However, I was prepared for them to have the worksheet
to take home for homework if they did not finish it in class.

4
Student learning: In terms of my formative assessment, I was very pleased with the
students being able to answer my questions about the content and processes. For content,
I used the “thumbs up, thumps down” approach often throughout the lesson to see if they
understood the facts, concepts, and generalizations I was teaching them. Also, I could tell
through their participation by answering the questions I was asking that most of the class
had a good grasp of it. The greatest assessment I was able to see, however, was their
understanding of the thinking skills and attitudes I was trying to instill in them. This is
much more important than the content itself and I was very pleased to see that almost the
entire class raised their hand at one point to make a valid observation on the cave art
images they saw based off their prior knowledge and what I just taught them. They were
very descriptive in their observations and it honestly blew me away what they noticed;
there were many observations they had that I did not even notice. Their attitudes were
very business-like and cooperative as well; there were no big disruptions during the
lesson, students chatting, or anything done that was disrespectful. In terms of summative
assessment, after looking over their notebook recordings and their worksheet answers, I
came to the conclusion that they were able to apply what they learned and displayed this
throughout the lesson in their writings in their notebooks and worksheets. Most of the
class wrote down important facts, concepts, generalizations, thinking skills, etc. into their
notebook and they all completed the worksheet. For each of the claims, most of the
students provided a valid piece of evidence from the article to support it and vice versa.
Consequently, I was very excited to see that, more than anything, they reached the
learning objective of being able to read a secondary source, make a claim regarding the
source, and provide evidence to support it.