Dakota State University

College of Education
LESSON PLAN FORMAT
● Grade Level:
○ 3rd
● Lesson Goal(s) / Standards:
○ Third Grade Earth and Space Science Standard
■ Represent data in tables and graphical displays to describe typical weather
conditions expected during a particular season
○ Content Objective:
■ I can identity classify clouds into Cirrus, Stratus, Stratoculumous, Cumulus, and
Cumulonimbus according to their physical characteristics.
○ Language Objective:
■ I can look at a chart about clouds, discuss with a partner how to identify clouds,
and write out my own graphic organizer.
○ Materials Needed:
■ Pencil
■ Blank graphic organizers

■ Assessment organizer:
■ Word wall
■ Sentence frames
The Lesson
● Introduction (include time allotment) Around ten minutes.
○ getting attention:
■ Assuming we already went over animals:
■ I am going to get the students up and moving away from their seats since this
promotes better learning. I will tell them that we are going to play a game called
 classifying animals which we should have a good idea about already since this
was a previous lesson. I would let them know that this is a review game for what
we learned about animals and their classifications the other week. I will have
amphibians, reptiles, and mammals at different corners of the room. I will
explain which corner is which and then I will go ahead and tell the student to
walk to a corner or group they think the animal belongs in, “whales”, “lizards”,
“or monkeys”. I do this so the students know what classifying is. This reminds
the students what they did in a previous lesson and lets them know that we are
going to or going to learn how to transfer those skills into this lesson. I will tell
the students that we are oing to classify and identify clouds to introduce out the
lesson. Then, I will let them know the plan for today which is to work with their
partners during the lesson and then work on a graphic organizer individually.
○ relating to past experience and/or knowledge OR building background to prepare for the
upcoming lesson:

■
■ I would use this chart to get to know and understand what the student wants to
know and what they already know about clouds. This organizer is super easy t
either write OR draw in since there are no lines. This will help me as a teacher
understand where they started at the beginning of the lesson and where they
finished or what they learned. This will be the pre-assessment and end-
assessment for the students. Those who can not write can draw or tell me
verbally, so those lower-level ELPs can be apart of this discussion as well. We
will fill this out during class time before I teach the lesson.
○ creating a need to know:
■ I will let the student sknow why it is important for us to learn about different
types of clouds. I will tell them that it is important fo rus to understand how to
identify clouds because then we can differentiate clouds into their categories. If
we wonder what the weather is going to be like, we can look at the clouds and
then use the information we will learn today to help us figure out the weather.
○ sharing objectives, in general terms (both language and content - written as “I can
statements”):
■ I can identity classify clouds into Cirrus, Stratus, Stratoculumous, Cumulus, and
Cumulonimbus according to their physical characteristics.
 ■ I can use a look at different clouds to determined what the weather is going to be
like and put them on my graphic organizer.
● Content Delivery (include time allotment & instructional methodologies): about 30 minutes
○ Students will first watch this video to help them understand the different types of clouds
and associate them with the weather.
■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAqeFSa60TE
■ This will introduce all five types of clouds to the students and will show real life
pictures to the students. I will leave the Captions on the video so those who need
to follow along can. I think the pictures will help the students understand each of
the clouds and the video has the names written out for the students. The video
also tells the student where they can see these clouds in which weather
conditions.
○ The students will then get into groups that I have assigned them. I will try to match them
graciously, one lower ELP with a higher ELP, or speaking the same language. I will
make sure they know to speak in English so they cna practice their English skills.
○ I will provide each group with four cut-out clouds :

○ Then I will provide them with four different organizers to glue the cloud in and then to
describe and tell me about the cloud. They will have the option to write or draw.

○ I will provide a word wall with some describing wrds for the clouds as well. This will
help the students find a word that they can not think of on their own.
○ I will also walk around and provide guiding questions for the students. This will help the
students know where to start thinking. I will already have strategies or sentence starters
around the room to help the students write who are using those at this time in their
schooling.
■ The guiding questions I will ask:
● What does it look like?
 ● What are they called?
● What type of weather do they tell you about?
● What type of weather is coming when you see these clouds?
● What do you think it would feel like?
● Is there anything you remember about the video that you could add here?
■ The quiding questions I will focus on are:
● What does it look like?
● What are they called?
● What type of weather do they tell you about?
○ I will have these written on the white board or somewhere
around the room so the students can refer to them.
○ The video and questions will help the students fill out the organizers I give them to work
on in partnered groups. This will help them identify all clouds and classify the weather of
each.
○ Once they are finished with their organizers, students will go back to their own desks and
work on filling in their own graphic organizer. Thye will attempt this individually since
this will be part of their assessment. Their graphic organizers will look similar to this:

● Closure (include time allotment) about ten minutes

○ Everyone will share what they learned with the class by discussing as a large group what
each cloud meant and give an example of a cloud in each weather situation. All students
should have discussed this in class with their peers and teacher. This means they should
all have a broad idea by know what each cloud is and what each cloud stands for in terms
of weather conditions. Before we start sharing out loud, I will have them fill out what

thye learned and finish the organizer they filled out before the lesson: .
Then we will go around telling about what we learned as a class today.
● Assessments Used
○ There are a few informative assessments in this lesson.
○ The first one is the KWL chart. I used this as a pre-assessment and a post-assessment.
This helped me understand where the students started in terms of knowledge and what
they gathered after the lesson. At the end of the lesson, I had students complete a graphic
organizr on their own to show me specifically that they know what the cloud type slook
like and what weather it would portray. We will use this data to decide if we need to
explore this classification further or whether we can go on to other types of
classifications. Because that is the criterion we are studying, students will be graded on
the substance of their graphic organizers rather than their grammar or punctuation.
● Differentiated Instruction based on ELP (English Language Proficiency)
○ Level 1 or 2 ELP students will have pictures and words on the video provided and around
the classroom and on their graphic organizers. An example would be showing a picture of
the type of cloud and asking what type that is. Another example would be having a sun or
water droplets asking what weather will the cloud portray. Level 2 ELP will have only
blank spaces on their organizers and pictures to choose from.. They will also be provided
sentence frames to provide some base for their writing if they feel confident enough to.
Some sentence frames will look like, “Stratus clouds are _____________ (fluffy, thin,
dark) because _____________” or “___________( Cirrus, Stratus, Stratoculumous,
Cumulus, or Cumulonimbus) clouds means the weather is ______________ (rainy,
sunny, dusty, dry, stormy) ”
○ Level 3 or 4 students will also have access to sentence frames and pictures for their
graphic organizers. They will be expected to complete the sentence frames as they
discuss the cloud types with their partnered groups. “ I think _______________ clouds
look _________________” and “I know ___________ clouds means that
___________________ (possibly weather)”