Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Grade Level/Subject: 4th, Social

Central Focus: Spending and savings affects how
Studies
people use their money.
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective: 4.E.2.1Explain how personal financial decisions such as
Date submitted:
Date
spending, saving and paying taxes can positively and/or taught:
negatively affect everyday life.
Daily Lesson Objective: Students will be able to discuss as well as be able to reproduc
how to fill out a check and a balance book, which reinforces the idea of spending and
saving money.
21st Century Skills: Life and
Academic Language Demand (Language Function a
career skills
Vocabulary): Checks, balance sheet, deposit ticket,
check book, money, bank, savings, spending
Prior Knowledge: Students should be able to apply the concept of wants and needs. Th
should also be able demonstrate community responsibilities such as having a job, pay
bills, etc., which would call for them to need to know how to manage their money.
Activity

1. Focus and
Review

2. Statement of
Objective
For Student
3. Teacher Input

Description of Activities and Setting

Have the class participate in a game that uses vocab
such as: transaction, deposit, withdrawal, balance,
check, deposit ticket, and check number. Vocabulary
words and their definitions will be printed out and each
table group will have to unscramble the definitions and
match them to their appropriate word. I will come by and
check each table group. This will activate the prior
knowledge because students should be familiar with
these terms and these terms will be used today as we go
over how to properly manage money.
Today you are going to learn how to fill out a check and a
balance book, which demonstrates spending and saving
money.
First write on the board the initial amount that students
are getting paid ($200). This way the teacher can
demonstrate how to fill out a deposit ticket for students
to see, and this also gives students an amount of money
that they have to spend later on in the lesson when they
are learning how to write checks. Students will also
record this deposit on to their balance sheets when they
learn how to fill these out. Pull up on the SmartBoard a
blank deposit ticket and demonstrate to students how
the information from the $200 that they got paid, fits
into the information on the deposit ticket. Show students
how to deposit this $200 using the deposit ticket.
Make sure to show students how you can also make

Time

10 m

1 mi

10 m

multiple deposits if you had a cash payment in addition

to a check to deposit. Add up the subtotal and then the
net deposit. Make sure to tell students that the date and
signature also needs to be included onto the deposit
ticket. Students will record the deposit ticket deposit
onto their own balance sheets, during the guided
practice.

4. Guided Practice

5. Independent
Practice

6. Assessment
Methods of
all
objectives/skills:

Pull up the balance sheet on the SmartBoard and show

students some of the things that it lists. Then, pull up a
check on the SmartBoard and practice writing it for the
class to see. Use one of the payments from the balance
sheet so that students can make the connection between
the checks and the balance sheet
Next, show students a different check than the one just
filled out in teacher input that has already been filled out
(and also correlates to the balance sheet). Pull up an
empty balance sheet and ask students if they can help
you to fill in the new check along with the check that the
teacher just wrote during the teacher input, into the
balance sheet. Call on students for each part of the
balance sheet and let them tell you what information
goes where, so that they can see the relationship
7 mi
between the information on the check and where it fits
into the information on the balance sheet. You may need
to help students or point out the difference between a
payment and a deposit. A payment is like writing a check
or taking money out of your account where a deposit is
very important to remember that you are putting more
money into your account. You can also point out that the
check number needs to be included into the balance
sheet.
Students will explore filling out their own checkbooks by
receiving a check, balance sheet, and deposit ticket
template that they must fill out with accurate
information. Students should make sure that what they
write their check for, is also what they fill into their
15 m
balance book. Their deposit ticket should include the
initial amount that they got paid to their accounts to
even be able to write a check. Students will need to
show that they understand what the information is for
each the check, balance sheet, and deposit slip.
Students will demonstrate this concept when they successfully
complete filling out their check, balance sheet and deposit ticke
with accuracy. They must put the correct information into each
section of the check, balance sheet or deposit ticket. This will sh

they can identify what each function as and how to properly

manage money through each of these means. Out of the 3
documents, at least 2 need to be correctly filled out with minor
mistakes to prove understanding.
End by asking students what type of things they chose to
spend their money on when they wrote checks. Pass out
a sticky note to each student to serve as an exit ticket.
Ask students what are some things that you have to
spend money on and what are things that you might just
want to buy for fun. (They should answer both of those
questions on their sticky note) Briefly talk about how
5-7
7. Closure
even though we have learned how to write checks and
min.
fill out our balance sheets, we still need to keep in mind
that it is best to mostly buy things that you absolutely
need, before buying things that you want. End by letting
them know that it might be easy to them to spend the
money now that they know what to do, but it has an
impact on your bank account and is taking money that
you earned away.
Out of the 23 students, 12 were present for the entire lesson. W
ran out of time so my CT told me just to omit the deposit ticket
8. Assessment
part. Therefore we only actually went over checks and balance
Results of
sheets, which students did very well with. 10 students correctly
all
filled out both and 2 students filled just the check and did not
objectives/skills:
complete the balance sheet. I considered this pretty good and
would probably have just gone back and scaffold the 2 students
learning rather than doing a whole class re-engagement lesson.
Targeted Students
Student/Small Group
Modifications/Accommodations: None in Modifications/Accommodations:
my clinical classroom
Advanced Students: For advanced students
would ask them to practice this concept by
going on a pretend shopping trip and
recording their purchases using the three
materials that we learned about today (che
deposit ticket, balance sheet). I would give
students $100 and then give them a local a
to a supermarket. I would let students know
the importance of budgeting and ask them
plan out a shopping trip that can cover thei
expenses for 5 days. They should deposit
the $100 into their account with a deposit
ticket, so they can go shopping. They shoul
record their results in their balance sheet fr
the shopping trip, and they should write a
check to the store. This activity provides m
emphasis on the context of these concepts

and allows advanced students to begin

applying this knowledge to real-word
situations.

Materials/Technology:
SmartBoard that contains example images of a check, deposit ticket and balance shee
JA BizTown workbook has these examples. Example balance sheet, to show students h
to write their checks

Reflection on lesson:

This lesson was one of my easiest lessons to do because for the most part my teacher
already had what she wanted to be taught to the students. In my school, Junior
Achievement is used for the 4th graders and after they complete this they exercise wh
they know with a program called JBizTown, in which students are assigned a job. I tried
incorporate some original ideas but for the most part, at this school, if social studies is
taught, it is taught by a book from a program (Junior Achievement). I was still happy to
see that my clinical teacher was willing to let me teach a social studies lesson.

The kids had prior knowledge of wants and needs, and they had been given a blank
check to play around with. Some of them had gone home and asked their parents
about it and those students were very familiar with the activity from my lesson.
Unfortunately due to groups of students being pulled out of the classroom for modified
learning, we only had 12 of the 23 students within the class, that were present for the
entirety of the lesson. Before I began teaching my lesson my clinical teacher let me
know that we were running behind and asked that I omit writing deposit tickets for
another time. This made me nervous because I was nervous about sticking to my less
plans but only using specific pieces of it. Nonetheless I was easily about to complete t
lesson plan and I was impressed with how engaged students were. The concept of
money seemed to be a huge question mark to them and I made sure to explain to my
students that when you write a check, this money is coming out of your account.
Something that I felt went really well, is explaining these kinds of questions and
concepts to my students. My clinical teacher told me after the lesson that she thought
was able to explain these difficult ideas about money in the bank account, exceptiona
well, as she says that these questions are often times really difficult to answer.

Something that I would have done differently if I could would be to allow more time fo
my lesson to have unfolded. I feel that the students really found interest in the subjec
and they were really unfolding their thinking about spending money, which I would ha
loved to, taken some extra time to be able to facilitate. Fortunately, the JBizTown field
trip was in two days, so students got the chance to apply this newly learnt knowledge
Im not surprised that time was the biggest constraint of the lesson because it seems
be a common trend that social studies is often times completely taken out of the
elementary school classroom.

Overall my social studies lesson was one of my least favorite but at the same time one
my easiest. It was not one of my favorites because I didnt feel like I really had much o
creative aspect of creating the lesson. However it was one of my easiest lessons beca
the kids loved the subject of money and the program actually provided me with a lot o
structure as well. If I had the chance to do it again I would wait until the whole class w
back, so that they could all be included into the conversation, which again, was the be
part of the lesson!