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Grade Level: 3rd Content Area: Social Studies and Language Arts
Anticipated Length of Time:
Central Focus
Central Focus of Lesson:
Students will discover what life was like in colonial times. In this lesson they will specifically focus on large
landowners and what their lives were like, including but not limited to how much land they typically had, what
kind of workers they had, and what types of produce were grown.
Related Skills:
Students will read Colonial Life by Bobbie Kalman.
Reading/Writing Connections:
This lesson helps students make reading and writing connections by helping them get an immersed
understanding into the type of people large landowners were. By comparing and contrasting large landowners
to farmers in the beginning of the lesson, it helps give them background knowledge and prepare them for the
concept of a large landowner. Comparing and contrasting also helps students notice details that they may have
otherwise missed because it requires students to take a closer look at the subject.
Students will hold a conversation about the differences in small farmers and large landowners. (Affective)
Students will define large landowners in their writing, including but not limited to how much land they typically
had, what kind of workers they had, and what types of produce were grown. (Cognitive)
Students will understand vocabulary including landowner, crops, harvest, produce, acre, farmhouse, orchard,
pasture, vegetable, and fertilizer. Students will also work on discourse and syntax while they are writing their
papers and even more so when writing their scripts in the extension activity.
Language Supports:
Teacher will go over all the words at the beginning of the lesson. Holding each word up, showing a picture of
each word, giving and example, and then using it in a sentence. The words will then be placed on a word wall
where the students can see them throughout the lesson.
Students should already be familiar with the three regions of colonies and should be able to tell the
characteristics of each region including but not limited to agriculture, weather patterns, and religion.
Building on Prior Learning and Assets:
Students will take what they have already learned about colonial times and those characteristics and apply that
to what they know about farmers today.
Grouping Strategies:
Two groups will be made with one teacher leading each group. One group would be students with IEP's,
students who are in a lower reading level group, and also ELL students if they do not already fall into this
category. The second group would be the gifted students and all other students who range from on-level to
above level reading. This way the teacher with the lower reading level group can spend more time on
vocabulary, and can use different instruction techniques than the teacher with the students who perform on-
level or above-level may require. This will allow for both peer to peer scaffolding as well as teacher led
scaffolding, which influences and increases their learning according to Vygotsky.
Lesson Considerations
Materials (Teacher and Student):
Projector (for YouTube video): Teacher responsibility
Colonial Life by Bobbie Kalman: Teacher responsibility
Paper: Student responsibility
Pencils: Student responsibility
Misconceptions:
People often assume that Large landowners were very mean. They are associated with owning slaves and were
against freeing slaves. Some were very nice to their slaves and other help. For them owning slaves and having
servants was their culture and was the only thing that they knew.
Adaptations:
If students are unable to physically draw, they may
use any other means of depicting their character, such
as different writing tools or technology.
Lesson Plan Details: Write a detailed outline of your class session including instructional strategies, learning
tasks, key questions, key transitions, student supports, assessment strategies, and conclusion. Your outline
should be detailed enough that another teacher could understand them well enough to use them. Include
what you will do as a teacher and what your students will be doing during each lesson phase. Include a few
key time guidelines. Note: The italicized statements and scaffolding questions are meant to guide your
thinking and planning. You do not need to answer them explicitly or address each one in your plan. Delete
them before typing your lesson outline.
Roles/Responsibilities:
Teacher #1 (Lindsey): This teacher will work with the lower level group.
Teacher #2 (Abby): This teacher will work with the higher-level group.
"Well today, we are going to learn about one kind of person that was most common in Southern Colonial
America, and that is the Large Landowner and his family. They were kind of like farmers back then, but I want
you to listen to this person from Colonial America and see if he sounds any different than the farmers we know
today."
The class will come together as a whole and read the large landowners section from the book The Farm by
James E Knight.
Closure - "After":
After the lesson the students will work individually on a piece written from the point of view a large landowner.
The students will pick who their audience is- either themselves (as the large landowner), family member (of the
large landowner), or another role from colonial times that was affected by the large landowner (I.e. slaves,
merchants, Europeans who bought their product, etc). They will also pick what format their written piece will be
in, choosing from journal entry, letter, poem, or newspaper piece. All pieces must also have an appropriate
illustration sketched of their character.
Extension: How could you extend this lesson if time permits?
What specific extension activity might the students do to continue practicing and building meaning?
To extend this activity, after students finish their papers about the large landowners, students could
partner up to create a script for a play based on ideas from both students' papers. After completing the
script, students will prepare to perform their skits for the class. The teacher will provide choices of
costumes for students to use in their performance. Students will then perform their skit in front of the
class, dressed as their individual characters.
NOTE: Attach any Relevant handouts, activities, templates, PPT slides, etc. that are referenced and utilized in
this lesson.
Video from the perspective of a present day farmer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHCbTJW3zls
Video from the perspective of a large landowner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80UdREpHGSI