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Emily Strupp
Integrative Unit Lesson 3: Prepositions in Architecture
To be taught: 3/27/15
Lesson Plan
Objective:
Students will be able to use prepositions to describe the location of objects and relative parts of
built structures.
Standards:

Use frequently occurring prepositions (e.g., during, beyond, toward).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.4 Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details,
expressing ideas and feelings clearly.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.5 Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when
appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.6 Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.1.I

Materials and Preparation:

Smartboard
Prepared interactive smartboard slides
12 paper squares (w/ extras)
pencils
crayons
demonstration objects (from classroom)
Classroom arrangement and management issues:
During the whole group lesson, students will be gathered at the front of the room near the
smartboard. The closest table will remain in their seats, and students at the other two tables will
sit on the floor. This is a common arrangement in our class when using the smartboard. I will sit
in a small chair next to the smartboard and face students. When I call students up to work on the
board, I will move back and watch with the rest of the class so that I am not always up front.
During partner work, most students will sit at desks in pairs. A few will be able to spread out and
work on the floor.
During partner work, if students are not working well within their teams and this causes a great
disruption of learning, I will momentarily intervene and redirect students. I will have a private
conversation with one or two students if necessary. I will tell students I expect them to respect
one another during partner work, following the rule that one person should talk at a time and that
everyone should be heard. These expectations will be established for group work prior to this
lesson.

Plan
Introduction, the hook [10 minutes]
I will start the lesson by inviting students from the back two tables to come sit close to
the smartboard. I will tell students that we are going to learn about types of words that are really
useful for people who design and build buildings, and they will be really important for our
writing as well. I will show students a set of instructions for a house that is very simple:
1. It has a door.
2. There are two square windows.
3. There is one round window.
4. There are 2 trees.
5. There is a fence.
I will say that someone gave these instructions to the architect for a house she wanted, and this is
how the architect drew it:
But, she really wanted it to look like this:

I will ask students: How could she explain what she wants more clearly? I will tell students to
talk with their partners about this for 1 minute. I will elicit general responses from students,
asking specific guiding questions as necessary. The goal will be to add a preposition to each
instruction to make it more specific. (i.e. It has a door in the middle. There are 2 square
windows on either side. There is one round window between the square windows. There are two
trees under the square windows. There is a fence behind the house.
Body of the Lesson [40 minutes]
After we have brainstormed ways to help the customer give a better explanation to the architect,
I will introduce the word preposition. As is common with vocabulary study in our class, I will
ask students: What do you notice about the word preposition? What do you think it might mean?
I will emphasize the position part of the word. I will highlight prepositions we came up with to
describe the house, and I will ask, What do these words do?
I will then bring up a screen with some characters and architectural objects for demonstrating
prepositions. For the words weve already discussed, I will ask a student to come

up and move objects to demonstrate them. (For example:

The dome is above the columns. Can you show that?

We will then brainstorm other words we could use to tell

where things are. I will move shapes around and ask questions about which words would be most
helpful. (I might put a beam across the columns, for example, or I might put a wall in front of an
arch.
For the remainder of the lesson, I will put students in groups and assign each group a specific
preposition from this list: on, in, behind, in front of, across, above, below, between, under, over,
around. Each group will have 2-3 students, and students in each group will work together to
create an illustration to demonstrate their assigned preposition and a sentence to go along with it.
When all are finished, I will put them together to make a class preposition chart.
Debrief, closure [5 minutes]
About 5 minutes before it is time to wrap up, I will bring students back together, ensuring them
that there will be time to finish working on their chart squares later in the day or the next day if
necessary. I will ask students to remind us of the kinds of words we learned about today, what
they can be used for, and how they might help an architect or a first grader.
Assessment of goals/objectives listed above:
During the whole group lesson, I will make note of ideas and sentences that students offer while
we work at the smartboard. I will audio or video record the lesson to keep track. While students
work in pairs, I will circulate and ask each group to tell me about the drawing and sentence they
are using for their preposition. If it seems that certain students have not fully reached the learning
goal, I will ask guiding questions and provide mini demonstrations with classroom objects in
order to give these students additional practice.
Anticipating students responses and my possible responses:
Management issues:
I anticipate that a few students may have difficulty working cooperatively. If students become
frustrated or begin arguing, I will walk over and engage these students in guiding questions to
help their understanding, as arguments generally break out when one student does not understand
and the other becomes frustrated. I intend to head off most of these issues beforehand by creating
pairings very deliberately for this lesson.
Response to content of the lesson:
I do not expect that the content of this lesson will be particularly challenging for most students.
All students already use prepositions in their speech, and many use them in writing, but I believe

there is great value in understanding why this language feature is so useful. Because prepositions
will be linked to architectural terms we will have already learned, I expect that students will
build on prior knowledge in order to more fully understand why prepositions can be particularly
important in communication. For a handful of students, including 4 ELLs, this content may
prove more challenging, but I think it will be a good opportunity for reinforcing an essential
English Language skills.
Accommodations:
For students who may find the material too challenging
I have chosen to utilize visual and kinesthetic elements on the smartboard in order to scaffold the
learning of ELL students and those who need very concrete representations to understand
concepts. I will make sure that each student who struggles with writing is paired with one who
does not so that these students can get support from peers and also contribute to group work in
other ways (providing ideas, drawing, coloring, etc.). If students are struggling to understand the
concepts during partner work, I will ask students to act out their assigned preposition with
objects before putting it down on paper.
For students who may need greater challenge and/or finish early
Students who finish early will be given a picture of a building and asked to write prepositional
sentences to describe the building as if someone were trying to build it. This exercise will further
build observation and description skills that students will use later in the unit and beyond.