Gwynedd Mercy University

School of Business and Education (20 points)

Name: Lauren Sellers Grade Level: First grade
Topic: Community Helpers
PA Core or Academic Standard(s): Standard - 5.3.1.A
Identify the roles of local government (fire, police, etc.) (1 point)
Big Idea(s): Be able to identify the different people who help our community and their roles.
(1 point)
Essential Questions: Who are the local government and what does this look like in a
community?
What does this look like in our community? (Specific to the community we live in)
(1 point)

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

result of this lesson? “Students will (action verb/content) by/through (assessment).”

• The students will be able to identify the different people who help us and are considered
our local government.
• Students will be able to define what they do to help our communities.
(1 point)
Domain I: Planning and Preparation
1. Briefly describe the students in your class, detailing all those with special needs. Include an
explanation of how you will meet the needs of ALL learners through Differentiated Instruction.
• The first-grade classroom is a self-contained classroom of twenty-five students. There is
a visually impaired student who must sit in the front of the classroom and has assistive
technology to help with his vision. Two of the students in the class have IEPs who leave
the classroom for reading and math and then one has an aide that accompanies him
throughout the day. Students with special needs will be given accommodation and
modifications as needed
• I will meet the needs of all learners by modifying any parts of the lesson that need to help
them succeed
• For the student with a visual impairment, I will have him sit in the front of the class and
print out larger copies of materials as needed. He also has his assistive technology to help
as he needs
• The student with the aide will have her and me as a resource (2 points)
2. Explain and show evidence of the psychological principles/theories you used in constructing
this lesson. (Example: Explain how the use of scaffolding during a mathematics lesson
would evidence a reference to Vygotsky’s theoretical approach.)
(2 points)
- I will be using the cognitive theory by Piaget. The students will be actively learning and
working with hands-on materials.

Domain II: Classroom Environment

3. Managing the Classroom: Describe the effective classroom routines and procedures in place
that result in little or no loss of instructional time. (Example: “Students know to get their math
journals on the back table on their way to the carpet, and come with pencils ready.” Morning
arrival, afternoon dismissal, etc.”) (2 points)
Schedule
• Greet each child as they are coming into the classroom
• Children unpack their things hanging coats and backpacks up in their cubbies
• They grab their planners/homework from the night before and place them on their desks
• They then head to the carpet where we gave morning meeting/homeroom. We discuss
school news, lunch options, specials, and how we are feeling for the day
• Write our homework in our planners and collect homework from the night before
• After the morning meeting, we start Writing at our desks
• Next, we transition to our language arts lesson and activities
• Bathroom break for the class
• After the bathroom break, we get out of book cubbies and get into our Reading groups
• Line up for recess and go outside
• Come back inside
• Wash hands before lunch
• Line up for Lunch and make our way quietly to the lunchroom
• Come back from lunch
• After lunch, we go back and sit at our desks for math
• Aftermath, we have our social studies/science lesson
• We then line up for art class and we quietly make our way to the art room
• Come back from special
• I pass out any homework for the night
• Pack up backpacks and jackets
- Talk with our friends quietly until dismissal

4. Managing the Behavior: Identity what you would do to set clear standards for student conduct
and behavior management. (Example: “When students work in table groups, they know their
productivity and cooperation will result in adding a marble to the jar.”) (2 points)
• When the class is working nicely together and there are not many behaviors issues the
class has a chance to win a point for the school day which will go towards the grade-wide
contest. At the end of the year, the classroom with the most points earned in the 5th grade
will have a pizza party!
• While students are working nicely in groups or independently, they have a chance to earn
a hole punch on their cards. Once all the holes are punched on their card, they can turn It
in for a prize box. Another way that the students can earn a hole punch on their cards is if
the teacher, another student, or a staff member sees them doing an act of kindness for
another student!
Domain III: Instruction
*List materials needed for your lesson (Example: children’s literature, iPads, bear counters,
cotton balls, markers, etc.)
• PowerPoint
• The PowerPoint will go over the duties of each of the government workers
• KWL chart
• Centers- pictures, books, and paper hats or badges/name tags of different community
helpers
• Cards of the firefighter, police officer, librarian, EMT, and bank teller. Cards that have
the matching description (These will be used for an I have, who has activity)

5. Motivation Activities/Strategies: How will you generate interest in your lesson topic? What
will you do to focus students’ attention on your lesson from the very beginning? (1 point)
• I will ask students if they know anything about police officers, firefighters, etc. A police
officer from the local police station will come in to talk to the students about what they
do to help protect our community.
• The students will get to ask the police officer questions.

6. Prior Knowledge Activities/Strategies: How will you “activate” students’ prior knowledge of
your lesson topic? ( Example: KWL Chart, “Yesterday, we learned…”)
• Students will fill out a KWL chart about things they know about the people who help and
work in our communities.
• I will talk about how we learned about written laws and rules yesterday, and today we
will learn about people that help us enforce them. We are also going to be learning about
other members of our community who help it succeed!
(1 point)
7. Sequence of Lesson: This is your lesson sequence: the step-by-step description of how you
will present your lesson. Beginning with the introduction, and progressing to how you will
engage your students, you will show how you then enable your students to understand and apply
the new concept/skill. Include independent practice, if applicable, whole group and/or small
group instruction, and any 1:1 instruction you have determined is necessary. How are you
monitoring and guiding the students’ performance? How will you show your direct instruction is
purposeful and focused? Be sure to include relevant vocabulary. (This section of your plan
should utilize bullet points as you illustrate your lesson sequence.) (3 points)
• After the students put away their math books they will come to the front carpet for the
start of our social studies lesson
• I will then ask them the motivating question about what they know about the people who
help our community
• We will fill out the first section of our KWL chart while still sitting on the carpet, they
will use their clipboards
• Right after this, we will have our guest speaker come in and talk to the students about
what it is like to be a police officer and his duties.
• The students will have a chance to answer questions
• After the police officer answers questions, I will hand out the guided notes that will be
used for the PowerPoint
• We will move into the power point describing all our helpers in the community. Helpers
that are considered our local government
• This power point will include firefighters, police officers, EMT workers, librarian, a
crossing guard, a bank teller, and a judge. It will also include their basic duties
• After the PowerPoint, we will go over the guided notes and then move into our centers.
• Before we move on to the centers students must put their guided notes into their social
studies folders, so they do not get lost.
• The students will then go to different centers around the room for the different
community helpers that we learned about. At these centers, there will be things like books
about the community helpers and paper hats that they can color and construct to wear!
The community helpers that don’t have hats Like the bank teller or a librarian will have
badges that the students can make. For example, the center on the police officer would
include a book on a police officer, pictures, and then a paper police officer hat. The
students will rotate through these centers. They do not have to make a hat for everyone,
but they should for at least one. After the centers, the students can quickly share what hat
or badge, they chose and what community helper they are.
• Next, we will move into our closing activity of “I have, who has.”
• Each student will be given a card that has a picture on it of a community helper and a
description, but they do not match. For example, the card could say “Who has someone
who helps save us from fires” and the student who has the card with the firefighter will
say “I have a firefighter.” They then will flip over their card and read whatever
description they have like “who has someone who handles books” and so on.
 • After the centers are finished and we have gone through all our community helpers I will
ask if there are any questions.
• After this, we will finish the KWL chart
• Once we answer the questions, we will get ready to go to special!

• Assessment Evidence: How will you know if students grasped the material? What
techniques/strategies will you use to assess learning (Example: questioning, slate drills,
thumbs up/thumbs down, written test, product/project completion, etc.) using Bloom’s
Taxonomy as a guide. Here you will identify which formal and/or informal assessments
you will use to monitor student learning and progress. Indicate whether the assessment is
formative or summative. Always refer back to your learning objective/performance
expectation to be sure you have remained focused on assessing what you have taught.
I will know if the students have grasped the material by playing the “I have, who has” game.
There will be little help from myself so this way I can know if the students really learned the
information. I will be able to see if they know the material if the game goes smoothly.
Obviously, if the whole class is stuck, I will help, but I hope the students can help each other!
The students will also have their guided notes to help them and for future reference.
(2points)
1. Lesson Closure: What will you do to bring this lesson to closure? Include a summary of
your lesson with a final check for understanding and be sure to preview the lesson that
will follow. “Today, we learned…(summarize the lesson). Does anyone have a question?
And, tomorrow, we will learn…(tell about what they will learn in the next lesson).
• To end the lesson, I will ask if there are any questions and if any need any clarification
and I will add a summary of the lesson as well!
• To end the lesson, I will say “Tomorrow we will learn about things we want and things
we need to survive which are called “wants and needs!” We can put our social studies
materials away and sit quietly until I call on your table to line up for special.