Elementary Education Program

Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

Lesson Plan

Name: Elizabeth Cashwell and Madison Neal

Grade: 2nd
Topic/Concept: Morning Meeting – Leadership
Materials/Resources:
 Morning Meeting PowerPoint Slides
o https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aZM1yHe3yzq8rsZnYIL2KFmartZh70D
aPnf3ohTUOkI/edit?usp=sharing
 Kid President Video (located on slide 5)
 Positivity Project Word: Leadership (located on slides 4-7)
 Sticky Notes 
 Chart Paper Titles “Leadership Goals”

Teaching Behavior Focus:

 Attend to Equity
o Provide all students with opportunities to access and engage in tasks
o Acknowledge learners’ interests and experiences and integrate them into
discussion
o Provide equitable response opportunities

Learning Objectives (measurable):

 Students will define leadership. 
 Students will identify the characteristics of someone who shows leadership. 

Standards:
 2.B.1 Understand how values and beliefs shape culture in America.
 2.H.1 Understand how various people and events have shaped America

Assessment Plan (How will you know that your students met the objective?):
 After watching the video about leadership, ask students to define leadership in their own
words again. Then, reinforce their understanding with the actual definition of leadership. 
 From here, ask the students a series of questions to see what they know. The questions
are:
o How does Kid President show leadership?
o Do you think Kid President is a good example of a leader for other kids
(or adults)? Why?
o Why do you think he said that it takes “one person filled with love” to
change the world?
o Can an ordinary person be a leader? How?
o When answering these questions, they will be meeting both learning objectives
which are: 
 Students will identify the characteristics of someone who shows
leadership.
 Students will define leadership. 
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

 The information that we gather will be based on who could answer the question
and who could not. It will be used to tell if the students understood the objectives. 
 After learning about leadership, we will assess the students weekly or bi-weekly and
make sure they are progressing in order for them to reach their personal goal(s).
Throughout this process, we will encourage our students to work toward their goals and
to be a leader to everyone! 
 If students are not on the right track then we can try to look at their individual goal and
encourage them to progress toward the goal and make sure they understand that their goal
is obtainable. They just need to work hard in order to become successful. 

New Vocabulary:
 Content vocabulary (e.g., obtuse, molecule, civil rights)
 Leadership: you value each member of your group and inspire people to
do their best (positivity project definition) 
●  Academic language (e.g., represent, model, compare)
 Represent- to present a picture, image, or likeness of
o How can they show leadership?
 Model- show through actions or verbalize the leadership opportunity.
o How can they model leadership qualities? 
 Compare- to point out as similar
o Can you compare two leaders and their qualities?
 Identify- to recognize or distinguish an ability of something, or someone.
o Can you identify the characteristics of a leader? 
●  Key non-content vocabulary that is necessary to understand the task/activity
 Key non-content vocab words:
o Various Examples: (Engineer, Teacher, Dancer, Athlete, etc.)
o Follower- is a person who seeks to be like someone else
 For example, if student X likes Skittles, then student Y will
like skittles too. 

Note: A detailed lesson plan is specific enough for another teacher to read and teach
effectively. There should not be any question regarding what to do or how to do it.

Lesson Development (hook/engage/launch, step by step in real time, include questions you will
ask in real time, closure/revisiting learning objectives):

Prior Knowledge/Anticipations:
 We think the students will have a general idea of what leadership is and know examples
of different leaders. For example, they may see their teacher, us, their parents or
grandparents, siblings, and more as leaders in their lives. It is anticipated that this will not
be a brand-new concept to them.
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

 They would bring in prior knowledge from the previous lessons in the Positivity Project
and from their real-life experiences. Additionally, they may see themselves as leaders and
bring that perspective to the lesson. 
 The students will approach this task with an open mind and connect it to their lives and
previous experiences in and out of school. 

Launch: 
 The teacher will lead the pledge to begin the day.
 Then, begin the lesson by doing a morning greeting. The morning greeting is an air hug. 
o “Good morning, everyone! Today we will begin with the greeting of an air hug.
This involves you walking up to another student and giving them a hug from a
distance. Please stand and greet your classmates!”
o During this time the students will walk around and give each other air hugs to
interact with their peers. Everyone is required to participate. 
 Next, they will do an “Occupation Feelings Check-In.” 
 To begin this, say “Now we are going to do an occupation feeling check-in. This is
similar to your regular feelings check-in except now we are looking at various jobs. For
this, you will read the list of occupations and pick which one you are feeling most like
today or you can pick what one you would like to be. You may pick one or multiple. To
show us what you pick flash the numbers on your fingers.”
o During this, they will pick a number 1 through 8 and display what occupation
they are feeling on their fingers. At this time the teacher will observe what the
students are displaying and comment on their responses. 
 If students are feeling more than one, they can flash both numbers on their hands. 
 From here the teacher will connect this launch into the idea of leadership and introduce
the lesson. The teacher can say: “Today we are going to be learning about leadership.
Each of these occupations reflects people who show leadership.” 
 At this time, the teacher will set expectations for the lesson. We expect them to be
engaged, open-minded, listen with care, and communicate with us about their ideas. 
o To enforce these expectations, we will demonstrate these traits ourselves as
teachers. For example, we will be engaged in the lesson as well and listen to their
comments, concerns, or questions. Lastly, we will communicate with them just as
we expect them to communicate with us. This will involve us engaging in
conversations with them and being fully present. Additionally, we will expect
them to be open-minded which is something we will model by taking all of their
ideas into consideration. By doing these things we believe the expectations we
have for our students will be met and exceeded. 

I do:
 The teachers will facilitate this leadership lesson to their classroom friends. You will
make sure all students understand all concepts of leadership and will fully be able to
accomplish the learning objectives which are: 
o Students will define leadership. 
o Students will identify the characteristics of someone who shows leadership. 
 The first activity is going to be to ask your students how they would define leadership
and identify examples of leadership in their lives. Give all students the opportunity to
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

speak and share their thoughts/definitions with everyone. Say, “Now, I want everyone to
think of something they can share with me about leadership. It can be a definition or an
example.” 
o  During this time make sure you are acknowledging the good characteristics of
each person’s definition. 
o Example: The student may say “I show leadership in P.E. class.” The teacher
would then say, “How do you show leadership? What characteristics do you
portray?” The student might say, “I help my classmates by explaining the game
we are playing so they understand. When doing this I am guiding them which is a
characteristic of leadership.” The teacher would say, “That’s awesome! Can you
think of any other characteristics you show that goes along with leadership? 
o If students get stuck, we can scaffold their learning by individually working with
them one on one and letting them visualize how leadership is evident in their
lives. For example, if student “x” is confused then we may say “who is a leader in
your life?”, then the student may say “My mommy is a leader”. We will then
follow up and say, “How is mommy a leader in your life?”. This will help
students that are stuck/confused fully understand the concept. 
o Additionally, to scaffold students’ responses who are stuck we will ask them
additional questions and provide them with sentence stems. An example of a
sentence stem would be “when someone guides others, they show signs of
__________ (leadership).” 

Transition Statement: 
 Say, “Now that we have defined leadership let’s watch a video to explore the
characteristics of someone who shows leadership.”

We do: 
 Next, you are going to play the Kid President video and remind the students to pay close
attention because questions will be following. 
 Say, “Now we are going to watch a video about Kid President. He is going to help us
identify the characteristics of people who show leadership. Let’s watch the video!” Play
video now.  
 Ask the students to give you a new definition to represent the meaning of leadership
based on what they just learned. Listen to their response. 
 Now, tell them the actual definition of leadership to connect their ideas with the real
definition.
o Leadership - you value each member of your group and inspire people to do their
best 

Transition Statement: 
 Say, “Now that we have watched Kid President inform us about leadership characteristics
let’s take a look at some questions to further our thinking.”

You do:
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

 Now that the video has been watched and the students have a new understanding of
leadership you will then transition into asking the students questions about the Kid
President video. The questions are below with their possible answers.
o 1: How does Kid President show leadership? 
 A: Kid President shows leadership by bringing awareness to how others
show leadership. He discussed different ways leaders show leadership to
others. 
 2: Do you think Kid President is a good example of being a leader for other
kids (or adults)? Why?
 A: Kid President is a good example for everyone. During the video, it
shows many adults helping others, and it shows kids being involved too.
Kid President also provided examples that EVERYONE can do like feed
the homeless, or help the hungry, and so many more fun activities. 
 3: Why do you think he said that it takes “one person filled with love” to
change the world?
 A: Because the love transfers to others, and he said everything will then be
“awesome”. When we show love to others then other people accept it and
it will change their mindset and heart and then they too will start loving.
When a person is filled with love then they will start helping others all the
time! Additionally, helping others is a characteristic of a leader and or
someone who shows leadership.
 4: Can any person be a leader? How? 
 A: Yes! Any person can be a leader by doing simple everyday tasks such
as leading the line in school or helping your neighbor with a math
problem.

Transition Statement:
 Say, “Now that we understand leadership let’s look more into applying it in our own
lives, thinking how we can hold ourselves accountable to show leadership.”

Closure: 
 To close the lesson, the teacher will guide the students to connect this to their real lives.
 Ask: “How can you model leadership?” At this time, the teacher will invite them to think
about how they can represent leaders in their lives and what leadership characteristics
they already have, or what they can add to their tool belt. 
 Invite students to set measurable goals for themselves regarding how they can show
leadership.
 Have them write their goal for showing leadership on a sticky note and post it on a poster
in the room for them to see. Say, “Please place your sticky note on the poster. By making
our goals visible we will be more likely to stick to them and hold ourselves accountable
for showing leadership. Are you up for the challenge?”
o They can use provided sentence starters when writing their goals. They are:
 To show leadership I will….
 To be a leader I will...
 For example, they may write on their sticky note that their goal is to show
leadership at lunchtime by picking up their trash that blows away.
 Elementary Education Program
Department of Teacher Education & Learning Sciences

 End with the quote: “Be the kind of leader that you would follow.” Discuss with the
students that we all have the opportunity to show leadership every single day. So, make
sure you are leading by example and looking up to great leaders for guidance. 

Extend:
 To extend students thinking of students who have a firm grasp on this concept of
leadership we will invite the students to evaluate two or more leaders. From here, they
can think about the similarities and differences between those leaders evaluating their
leadership qualities. Ask: “Can you compare two leaders and their qualities?” Then, the
students can discuss which characteristics they think are the most important/ key
qualities. After that, they can once again evaluate their own lives and see if they obtain
these qualities or how they could implement them into their lives. Additionally, you
could ask them to think back to a time in their lives where they have already been a
leader for others. With this activity, they could reflect on how they could have been a
better or more efficient leader.