Lesson Plan

Grade: Kindergarten
Topic: Social Studies
Title: Sequences of Life Stages

Lesson Objectives: Students will demonstrate the knowledge skills they learned through the lesson by creating a time line of their family members by identifying who is the oldest and youngest.

Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCEs): K-H2.0.2 Create a timeline using events from their own lives (e.g., birth, crawling, walking, loss of first tooth, first day of school).

Rationale: I’m teaching this lesson because it’s important for students to be able to think critically about order and sequence of events. As these students move up in the educational system they will be expected to understand why and how things fall in a chronological order. For example if students do not have the tools they need to mentally put things in order, exampling history and reading novels will be extremely difficult for them. It’s more important for them to practice seeing things and understanding why and how things fall in a sequence order.
Timelines in one way or another are used in every subject matter, and it’s vital for students to recognize the clues presented in order to mentally put things in order. Learning how to put images into a chronological order is an important skill to have, and vital for later learning. Students will be asked to put and draw images of humans into a chronological order starting from the past, and working to what future images will look like. Students will be learning how to make the connection between images and the timeline of events.

Materials:
• Life Stages worksheet
• Scissors
• Glue
• Crayons/markers
• 5x7 note cards
• Construction paper
• The children’s book When I Grow Up by Merce Mayer.

Lesson Procedures:
Introduction
(5 minutes)
I will ask students to sit in a circle at the rug in the back of the room.

After they are situated I will tell them what they are going to learn about. “Today we are going to talk about putting things in a certain order. Can anyone explain what the word “order” means?” (wait for a response and go from there)

Students will move from the tables to the back of the room and sit on the big rug. The rug has every letter of the alphabet on it, and each student is assigned to a letter and they always sit on that particular letter during rug time.

Activity 1: Reading a book
(7 minutes)
After students talk about what order means I will explain that we put people in order according to their age, and ask for them to give me examples.

I will then read When I Grow Up by Merce Mayer. This is a way to introduce to topic of present and future in a way that is engaging to students.

Students will be sitting on their letters while listening to me read the story.

Activity 2: Discuss
(5 minutes)

I will then explain that this book shows examples of the present and future and discuss with the class what these words mean. “The present means that something is happening right now, for example you guys are in kindergarten right now therefore that would be an example of something that is happening in the present. The future means it hasn’t happened yet, but will happen later on. Just like in the story, the little girl was unable to do some things right now, which is the present, but one day will be able to do it, that’s the future!” I will then ask the class if anyone knows what the opposite of the future is. Depending on students responses I will then go into detail about what the past means “it’s something that has already happened. For example, your third birthday happened a long time ago, that means it happened in the past.” I will allow students to ask questions for clarification.

As I go over the new vocabulary I will write them on the board so they can visually see what these words look like. Although they will not be expected to remember the spelling or learn to read them, exposure to new words is always beneficial.


Activity 3: Worksheet
(5 minutes)

To get students attention back on me I will use an attention grabber that my CT uses “1, 2, 3, eyes on me (students respond) 1, 2, eyes on you.”

After I have their attention, worksheets will be handed out to students, and will be explained. I will have a similar worksheet, same concept just with different pictures to give students an idea of what they will be doing.

After showing my worksheet to the students and explain what to do for their “you have to put the pictures in order from youngest to oldest. Use the clues we talked about to figure out which one is the youngest, and which one is the oldest.”

I will then ask students if they have any other questions and allow them to get to work.

This activity involves using scissors and glue; something students need more practice using. I will ask the class “how do we handle scissors” and let them talk about the do’s and don’ts when working with scissors. (This could prevent any injuries form occurring.)

Activity four: Incorporating Technology
After students show me they understand the concepts of life sequence, I ask them to use Google and find images of animals that also show life sequences. After they find images of animals, they will need to print them out and put them in order like they did on the worksheet. Then as a class we will discuss the animals as a class we will pick a few animals to explore future. With the animals we pick we will use Google Earth to see what their habitats look like. This will introduce students to Google Earth.