Student Teaching Lesson Plan Template

(Indirect Instruction)

Subject: Central Focus:

Earth in the Universe Students will demonstrate knowledge of the solar system by arranging
spherical objects of different sizes in an order that represents the eight
planets and the sun.

Essential Standards/Common Core Objective (2): Date submitted: Date taught: 10/31

3.E.1 Recognize the major components and

patterns observed in the earth/moon/sun system.

3.E.1.1 Recognize that the earth is part of a system

called the solar system that includes the sun (a
star), planets, and many moons and the earth is the
third planet from the sun in our solar system.

Daily Lesson Objective (1):

Students know that we live on a planet that is part of a solar system. Students know that a solar system
includes a star and planets, and other objects. The planets and other objects revolve around the star. Students
know that in our solar system Earth is the third planet from the sun.

21st Century Skills (1): Academic Language Demand (if Handbook applicable)
Tips: Only include language demands for THIS lesson.

 Teamwork and ● Language Function:

Collaboration Analyze and Compare
 Innovation and Creativity
 Critical thinking and ● Content/Academic Vocab:
Problem Solving Solar System
 Accessing and Analyzing Astronomy
Information Comets
Asteriods
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
 ● Discourse possibilities:
Students will work in groups to research the planet they chose and
the question they picked.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills Global Awareness (1):

needed (1): Students will need to understand the solar system to better understand
Students should know the concept the world they live in and understand that the world is a lot larger than
of volume and mass. what the eye can see. Students can relate to the topic because we can
see the stars, sun and moon during the day or at night.

Activity Description of Activities and Setting Time

1. Engage (3) Before the lesson, gather about 10 round objects 5 min
that range from in size and weight. Put the round
objects on a table and have students sort them from
largest to smallest. Ask questions like: Which
object is the heaviest? Is that object also the
biggest? How many times bigger is the largest
object than the smallest object? How do you know?
2. Explore (3) Tell the class that the sorting they just did is similar 20 min
to how a scientist would classify the planets. They
can sort the eight planets from biggest to smallest,
from nearest to farthest from the sun, and by how
much they weigh.

Write the names of the eight planets on the board,

telling students they are in order from smallest to
largest (write: Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth,
Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter).

Have students remain in their groups and work

together to choose an object to represent each
planet and the sun. What could you use to represent
Mercury? How about Jupiter? Students can also
draw a representation of how big they think a planet
would be, or find another round object in the
classroom (a globe, an eraser from a pencil, etc.)

Tell the students that if earth, which is not the

smallest planet, was as big as this dot ( . ) then the
sun would be about the size of a tennis ball

When finished, each group should have nine objects

that represent the solar system, lined up in whatever
order they choose
3. Explain (3)
4. Elaborate/Extend (3)
5. Evaluate (Assessment methods)
(3)
Fold fact strips in half, then put them in a container 15 min
for students to pick one.
Have students go up one at a time to the
promethean board to write their fact about the solar
system.
Once all the facts have been written, break students
into pairs. Tell them to discuss with their partner
whether the objects they chose with their group are
a good representation of the planets or not. What
did they get wrong? How would they fix it?
Come back as a class and have a volunteer from
each pair share what they found out. Write the
observations on the board.
Now that students know something about how the 15 min
planets compare to each other, have them research
more about our solar system.
Have students break into pairs or work with the
same partner they did before. Each pair must
choose to research one thing from this list:
1) How far apart are each of the planets from the
sun?
2) How far is Mars from Earth?
3) How big is the sun?
4) How big is the sun compared to other stars in our
solar system?
5) Why is a planet’s mass different than its weight?
Tell students to write down interesting facts they
find on index cards, so they can share them with the
class during the next section of the lesson.
[Informal] 15 min
Students will create their choice of constellation on
paper using black construction paper, sticker stars,
chalk, or in their science notebook.
They will record change in shadow throughout the
day and recognize that their shadow has changed
shape based on the sun’s position.
 The students will also draw and label the planets, in
order from the Sun, on the back of their paper.

Student(s) & Student/Small Group Student/Small Group

Modifications/Accommodations (2): Struggling Learners ELL’s

1. High-flyers Differentiation: Differentiation:

2. Struggling Learners
3. English-Language-Learners
Provide students with an article
on specific planet for them to
research instead of having the
student(s) look it up themselves.
Provide student(s) with an article
that includes an abundance of
images. Also allow them to use
chrome book to watch videos on
the specific planet they were
given to research and allow them
to watch the video in their
language.

Materials/Technology (1):
 Various spherical objects
 Paper strips with solar system facts written on them
 Promethean Board
 Chrome Book – For research
 Index cards
 Poster board

Reflection on lesson:

In this lesson, I really feel like the students benefitted from having tangible items that they can hold and sort.
I think this gives them a better idea of the relations amongst the planets. If I were to change something about
the lesson I may have just put the facts on the promethean board instead of having each group write the fact
on the board. I think with doing that it would save more time and allow them to spend more time researching
their own facts once we got to the group work. Although, I could tell both the lesson as a whole was effective
as far as giving students the tangible items and facts already written out because students were engaged and
were able to build communication off of the facts given which means they were understanding the topic. Each
group had something to share from around the room to compare the planets to the sun including erasers, a
chrome book and even the globe in the classroom. This let me know that the students were understanding the
relation amongst the 8 planets and understood that the sun and planets were much bigger than what it appears
to be from an image. We did not get to share the facts that each group found on their chrome books but from
walking around the classroom I could tell that each group had a variety of facts they were planning to share
with the class and if time had allowed I would have had at least one person from each group share a fact that
they found. To close the lesson, I explained to the students that what we did today is exactly what scientist do
when they are classifying and researching the planets themselves. That way students were connecting it to
what a real-life scientist does and made them feel as though they were scientist themselves during the lesson.
Overall, the lesson was engaging and informative for the students and I could tell that they were really
interesting and intrigued to learn more about the solar system.