SAINT FRANCIS UNIVERSITY

Loretto, PA 15940

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

LESSON PLAN Format

Student Teacher Mary Kraus Grade 2

Subject Science _
Time Needed for Lesson 40-60 minutes Lesson Concept Solar System __

PA STANDARD(S) (Write out standards):

Standard - 3.3.4.B1
Identify planets in our solar system and their basic characteristics.

BIG IDEAS/ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:

The solar system is made up of 8 distinct planets.

Each planet orbits the sun and has a variety of defining characteristics.
How is the solar system organized?
How does the movement of the planets cause changes?
What determines a day on different planets? A year?

ELIGIBLE CONTENT:

Anchor Descriptor - S4.A.3.1 Identify systems and describe relationships among parts of a familiar system (e.g.,
digestive system, simple machines, water cycle).
Eligible Content - S4.A.3.1.3 Categorize the parts of an ecosystem as either living or nonliving and describe
their roles in the system.

Anchor Descriptor - S4.D.3.1 Describe Earth’s relationship to the Sun and the Moon.
Eligible Content - S4.D.3.1.2 Explain how the motion of the Sun - Earth - Moon system relates to time (e.g.,
days, months, years).

OBJECTIVE(S) (Be sure to include all four parts):

After exploring the 8 planets, the student will, along with a partner, share two pieces of information about their
planet to share with the class.

MATERIALS:

 SMART Board
 Solar System song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQrlgH97v94&list=WL&index=3&t=0s
 Information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ2bQWH6GCM&list=WL&index=4
 Storybots (to 1:43): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2ZXRh74WU&list=WL&index=5
 Earth Rotating (day): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO1VLpVpu1g
 Earth Rotating (day and year): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEpEeyqGlxA
 Game: https://www.turtlediary.com/game/solar-system.html
 Poster of Solar System
 Poster of orbiting planets
 Balls
 Cutouts of planets
 Markers
 Pages for recording planet facts
 Planet information for groups

ACTIVITIES (There are three sections here):

OPENING (Introduction, purpose, hook) (5 minutes)

 Begin by drawing upon prior knowledge.

o What planet do we live on?
o What do you know about Earth?
o Is Earth the only planet? How many planets do we have? (discuss Pluto)
o What do you know about the solar system?
  Show poster of solar system
o Ask inferential questions: What do you notice? (write observations on board)
 (The Sun is huge. The planets are different sizes. The planets look different— Jupiter has
stripes; Saturn has a ring; Neptune is blue.)
 Explain that all planets orbit the sun. They also spin around, and how each planet spins determines the
days and years of that planet.
o Show picture of planets orbiting.
o Show the video of the Earth rotating. Explain that a day is determined by how long it takes the
planet to rotate, and a year is determined by how long the orbit around the sun takes.
 Tell students that they will be exploring the Solar System over the next week. Today we’ll be doing
some explorations with partners.
 The class will be split into 8 groups – one for each planet. Each group is responsible for finding at least
5 facts about their planet to share at the end.
 Split students into groups and distribute recording sheets.

BODY (Bulleted step by step/differentiation must be included) (20 minutes)

 Show Solar System videos. Tell students to pay special attention to their planets when they are
introduced so that they have facts to share. Play the videos multiple times if necessary.
 Have groups split up and give them information about each planet. Have them read as a group and
record facts that they find.

CLOSURE (Wrap up and brief summary): How will you plan to restate the lesson objective? (20
minutes)

 Students will reconvene with their information sheets.

 Each group will share a few facts that they learned about their planet while the teacher records the facts
on the planet cutouts. This information will be used in the coming lessons so that students have
references of planet information.
 Ask each group what was their favorite thing that they learned.

ACCOMMODATIONS/MODIFICATIONS:

n/a

ASSESSMENT: (How you will determine that student has mastered objectives?): Consider formative and
summative assessment measures for all levels of differentiation.
The students will be assessed by ability to share two pieces of information about their researched planet.

SELF-ASSESSMENT/REFLECTION: (Complete this section if you have taught this lesson to peers or in
clinical placement):

This lesson went great! I put a lot of work into the planning, and I felt that it was very rewarding,
because the kids were so excited to learn about the planets, and to explore them by themselves. The minute I put
up the poster with the planets, the students were ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing’ in excitement. Some of them had
limited background knowledge, and this helped make the lesson fun because the kids were eager to share what
they already knew.
I felt that the introduction was very effective, and the videos that I chose did not seem to be too difficult
for them to comprehend. They seemed to be very impressed with some of the facts about the planets (how big
Jupiter is, how hot Venus is, etc.) I think that the partners that I chose worked out very well, and everyone got
done around the same time and seemed to work well together. I did notice that some groups were lagging
behind when the other groups were all done, so I went around and wrote for them to speed it up a little. At the
end, the kids were so eager to share what they had learned about their planet. They loved being the ‘expert’ on
their planet, which was fun to see.
One thing that my cooperating teacher suggested was to give them more explicit directions when pairing
them off into groups. She said that they were not used to working with a partner at different desks, and as a
result, they were a little loud during transition time. So she mentioned that it might be a good idea to outline the
directions a little better.