Unit Plan: Civil Rights

Lesson Plan for Friday

Grade: 1st
Social Studies Strand: Civics
Submitted By: Deavon Hinebauch


EDEL 453: Teaching Elementary School Social Science
Nevada State College Spring 2014
Instructor: Karen Powell
Lesson Plan for Friday Strand: Civics submitted by: Deavon Hinebauch

Nevada State College EDEL 453 - Spring 2014 Karen Powell- Instructor page 2
B. Summary of the Lesson Plan: This social studies lesson is designed for 1st grade students to
learn about the importance of classroom and school rules; it is the last lesson in a five-day
unit on Civil Rights. This lesson uses the Houghton Mifflin Social Studies textbook School
and Family (p. 230-231).
C. Basic Information:
Grade Level: 1
st
Grade
Time to Complete this Lesson: 50 minutes
Groupings: whole group for introduction, reading, and data sheet; small group for
acting out scenarios, creating a law, and discussion; independent for ticket out the
door.
D. Materials:
Houghton Mifflin 1st Grade Social Studies Book: School and Family (p. 230-231)- one
for each student
One Data Sheet-Service Learning Strategy-to be filled out as a class
Smart board and one poster board
Writing utensils
E. Objectives:
o NV State Social Studies Standards
C13.1.1 Identify and follow classroom and school rules that guide
behavior and resolve conflicts.
o Student-Friendly Standards
I can create and follow classroom and school rules (laws) that guide my
behavior and resolve conflicts.
F. Vocabulary
Law- Community Rule
Government-Group of people chosen to make laws
G. Procedure:
1. Introduction
Lesson Plan for Friday Strand: Civics submitted by: Deavon Hinebauch

Nevada State College EDEL 453 - Spring 2014 Karen Powell- Instructor page 3
Create a bubble map on the board that says, Why do we need rules? Ask
students to discuss in small groups and then share. Write responses in the bubble
map.
Go over vocabulary with students
Inform students that they will be researching and creating some classroom rules
or laws together.
2. As a class, read p. 230-231, relating laws and government to the classroom. Students
will act as the government to create the laws of the classroom-reference
definitions.
3. Display some examples of rules for students to view (rules at home, school rules, rules in
the library, etc.)
4. Have students in small groups (3-4 students) act out scenarios in which one student is
disrespected by the behavior of another (provide the behavior: stealing, being
disruptive, etc.). Model this explicitly for students first.
5. Ask each group to provide a classroom law that they as the government should create
to prevent these scenarios from happening and write them on a poster board.
6. Incorporating Service Learning (strategy 10)-Fill out the Service Learning Data Sheet as
a class and devise other ways to help each other learn and implement respect and
rapport in the classroom, add these laws to the poster board. Hang the laws next to
the Rights and Responsibilities chart created the day before when finished for students
to continually access and review.
7. Wrap up the unit with asking students about their favorite part about learning about
civil rights this week. Why do you think it is important to learn about civil rights, and
create rights in the classroom? Point out the displays on the wall (Protesting signs, Rights
and Responsibilities list, and class laws) and ask students if they are glad that we
established these guidelines?
H. Assessment:
What will you use to measure student understanding?
Ticket out the door will help assess individual student understanding. This lesson will
require plenty of observational assessment of whole group, small groups, and individual
participation. I will put a check mark next to all students who I notice actively
participating in the lesson, and make a note of those that do not to address later.
Explain how you will know students understand the concepts from the lesson.
Students must create and follow classroom and school rules by creating one
classroom law in small groups, as well as any added during discussion of how to
implement respect and rapport. Ticket out the door will assess individual
understanding of concepts.
I. Closure:
Ticket out the door: Which do you think is the most important law we created today?
Why do you think it is the most important?
J. Reflection:
Lesson Plan for Friday Strand: Civics submitted by: Deavon Hinebauch

Nevada State College EDEL 453 - Spring 2014 Karen Powell- Instructor page 4
1. Which part of the lesson do you think will be the easiest for you to teach?
The easiest will be the introduction and vocabulary relationship to the classroom.
As well as discussing rules in which students are already familiar.
2. Which part will be most challenging for you to teach?
The most challenging will be to work with students in small groups in acting out the
different scenarios. This will require strong classroom management, scaffolding, and
explicit modeling.
3. How will you follow up or extend this lesson?
I can extend the lesson by having students write a small paragraph about why it is
important to have rules.
4. What can you do for students who do not grasp the concepts?
I would work with the students more one-on-one and describe various scenarios of
how I, the teacher, have felt when another person was disobeying a rule or law,
and then help them relate this to their own lives. Then scaffold through guided
questioning to help students reach appropriate responses of why it is important to
have rules (student safety, class norms, etc.)
5. Which part of the lesson, if any, do you think might need to change?
The acting out scenarios may need to be changed, maybe showing a video
instead. I would like students up and moving around, but time and individual
students will have to be considered.
6. When you were writing this lesson plan, what was the most difficult part?
Integrating a language-arts strategy that closely matched my objective and
standard for the lesson.
7. Explain the strategy from Integrating Language Arts & Social Studies that you
included in this lesson plan.
I included an incorporating service learning strategy for this lesson. This strategy
matched well with my lesson because service learning is an important method of
preparing students to be citizens who take responsibility for others and contribute
to betterment of society. At a first grade level, this is only taught in relation to the
classroom and school, but still teaches students about service to others and how to
address issues. An effective way to do this is to have students identify issues and
create solutions.