Gwynedd Mercy University

School of Business and Education

Name: Samantha Goldberg Grade/Level First

Topic: Civics and Government

PA Core or Academic Standard(s): PDE 5.3 How Government Works

Big Idea(s): Members of local government and their roles.

Emergency Responders role in the community.

Essential Questions: How do we rely on other people to live?

Is every job important to a community?

Objective/Performance Expectation: What will students know and be able to do as a

result of this lesson? (1 point) Students will identify the emergency responder members
of local government and describe their role in the community by completing a cut and
paste activity that matches the job with its role.

I. PLANNING AND PREPARATION: (keep the questions in)

1. Briefly describe the students in your class, including those with special
needs. Explain how you will meet the needs of ALL learners
(Differentiated Instruction). (2 points)

My classroom is a first-grade inclusion classroom for Autism support.

There are 23 students in the class, 13 boys and 10 girls. There are also
three students on the mild end of the Autism spectrum in the classroom.
Because of this there are two Special Education teachers in the classroom
along with the general education teacher. I will differentiate instruction by
varying the methods of instruction for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic
learners.

2. List the specific standard and expectations as outlined in the PA

Core/Academic Standards (SAS). (1 point) Take this right from the SAS
website.
PDE 5.3 How Government Works
5.3.1 First Grade
5.3.1.A. Branches of Government

3. Explain the psychological principles/theories you used in constructing this

lesson and explain how it is manifested in the lesson. (2 points) Minimum
of 1-maximum of 3. (VAKT learning styles)

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 The learning principle I’m going to be using is teaching for a variety of
learning styles. In my lesson plan, there are activities for visual, auditory,
kinesthetic, and tactile learners (VAKT). For the visual leaners we will be
using anchor charts that will be up in the classroom throughout the entire
unit. The auditory learners will be satisfied by the teacher explaining the
lesson as well as talking to their peers during the game. For the kinesthetic
learners, we will play a game that involves them moving around the
classroom. Finally, the tactile learners will be accounted for during the cut
and paste activity.

II. CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT:

4. Describe the effective classroom routines and procedures resulting in little

or no loss of instructional time. (1 point) MANAGING ENVIRONMENT

The desks will be arranged in a U shape. There will be exercise balls

available for a few students in place of chairs. The classroom door will be
shut during teacher instruction time. During student work time quiet,
relaxing music plays in the background. Student backpacks are kept in the
back of the classroom on hooks and student materials are kept neatly in
their desks. The classroom rules and procedures are posted on the wall
clearly for students to see. Students are organized into learning spots.
Each learning spot is part of a row. One learning spot row at a time is
called when it is time to gather materials. After a long span of
instruction time the students will get a brain break.

5. Identify what you will do to set clear standards of conduct and behavior
management of student behavior. (1 point)

The teacher uses positive reinforcement as her main form of behavior

management. The classroom has a marble jar to help reward positive
behavior. Students are expected to have whole body listening during
instruction time. The teacher will model this at the beginning of the lesson
(legs crossed, hands in lap, eyes watching, mouth quiet, and ears
listening). Students are aware of the classroom rules that promote
respect. The students will respect themselves, others, and the
environment. Examples of what each of those rules mean are
explained to the students. For example, respecting the environment
means cleaning up your trash.

6. Identify what you will do to establish expectations for student

achievement. (1 point) (assessment?). (modeling?).

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 The students will be given a cut and paste activity with three sections.
They will be told that there are a certain number of pieces for each section
to help them self-check their work. If they do not have three pieces under
each category they need to try again. The teacher will remind students of
this as they’re working.

III. INSTRUCTION:

List Materials Needed

• Cut and paste worksheet
• Scissors
• Glue
• Game cards
• Chart paper
• PowerPoint

7. Motivation Activities/Strategies: (1 point)

How will you generate interest or focus your lesson for the students?

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=teaching+kids+when+to+call+911
&&view=detail&mid=DBDDF9F324094BC6A14ADBDDF9F324094BC
6A14A&rvsmid=894BF1EE3264D5E90E93894BF1EE3264D5E90E93&
FORM=VDRVRV (Stop at 44 seconds)

This video is a quick song about calling 9-1-1. I will play the song and ask
students who they are calling if they call that number. We will also talk
about appropriate and inappropriate reasons to call emergency responders.

8. Prior Knowledge Activities/Strategies: (1 point)

How will you activate prior knowledge, build background, or review
previous lessons?

The teacher will start by talking about the students’ classroom jobs. She
will ask some students to share what their classroom job is and what they
have to do for that job. The teacher will explain to them why classroom
jobs are important. She will ask students if any of them have family
members who are police officers, firefighters, EMTs, or doctors. Then, the
class will start building their job list to build their background knowledge.

9. Sequence of Lesson: What learning activities/strategies will you use to

engage the students in the learning? What will students do to use and
apply new concepts or skills (independent practice if relevant)? How will

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 you monitor and guide their performance? Include relevant vocabulary.
(Please use bullets to sequence your lesson) (3 points)

• The teacher will give a brief description of government.

• The teacher will tell the class they are learning about local
members of government, more specifically emergency
responders.
• As a whole group the class will make a list of what they know
about police officers, firefighters, EMTs, and doctors.
• The teacher will write each item on a chart.
• The teacher will review the list with the students.
• Teacher will review PowerPoint.
• Teacher will bring up pre-made anchor charts for each profession
and hang them on the board.
• Teacher reviews the information on each chart one at a time.
• After reviewing each chart, the teacher will ask the students why
we need those jobs in our community.
• Teacher will review cut and paste activity.
• Pass out cut and paste activity to each student.
• Students will have ten minutes to complete this activity.
• While students are working, the teacher will pass out cards face
down to each student. Tell the students not to look.
• When the ten minutes are up the teacher will review the answers to
the activity.
• Tell the students about the card on their desk. Remind them not to
look.
• Explain to the students that they are going to hold the cards on
their head. No looking.
• Explain how to play the game.
• The students will walk around asking each other questions to
figure out what job they have on their head.
• When they figure out what is on their card, they will stand under
that anchor chart.
• The teacher will dismiss one group at a time back to their seats by
calling out a fact about each group.
• When each group is back in their seats, the teacher will begin the
closure activity.

10. Level of Learning/Assessment Evidence (1 point)

How will you know if students grasped the material? What
techniques/strategies will you use to assess learning (Bloom’s
Taxonomy)? Identify what informal and/or formal assessments you will
use to monitor student learning. Also identify if this will be formative or
summative.

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 There are two assessments in this lesson. The cut and paste activity and
the guessing game. The students will organize the information they
learned in the cut and paste activity. This is a formal assessment that will
be worth points. It is also a formative assessment because it is one part of
the students’ unit on government. The students will also be informally
assessed during the game by teacher observation. This is also a formative
assessment.

11. What will you do to bring closure to the lesson? How will you summarize
this lesson and preview the lesson that will follow? (2 points)

Today we talked about emergency responders and the role each person
plays in our local government. We started by listing what we already
know about police officers, firefighters, EMT’s, and doctors. We learned
more about each job by looking at our anchor charts that will stay up in
our classroom as we continue to learn about government. Remember there
are many levels of government, today we talked about some members of
local government. You all used what you learned on the cut and paste
activity. You were even able to play a game by guessing what job you had.
We learned a lot about the local members of our government and how
important they are to our community. Tomorrow we will learn more about
local government by talking about our mayor.