First Grade Geography Lesson

Lesson Plan #1

Grade: 2nd grade

Social Studies Strand: Geography

Submitted By: Courtney Donnelly

EDEL 453: Teaching Elementary School Social Science

Nevada State College – Spring 2014

Instructor: Karen Powell

Lesson Plan #1 - Geography submitted by: Courtney Donnelly

Nevada State College EDEL 453 - Spring 2014 Karen Powell- Instructor page 2

B. Summary of the Lesson Plan:

This is a second grade lesson made for the students to teach them how to locate and

scribe their city and state using a map. This lesson uses the Houghton Mifflin Social Studies

Textbook “Neighborhoods”. (p. 66-69)

C. Basic Information:

Grade Level: 2nd grade

Time to Complete this Lesson: approx 45 minutes

Groupings: whole group readings & discussions, small group worksheet, and

independent assessment

D. Materials:

Houghton Mifflin Social Studies Textbook “Neighborhoods” for each student

Paper & pencils

map

Unit Resources handout P. 16 for each student (preview on bottom of TE p. 66)

E. Objectives:

o NV State Social Studies Standards

G6.2.7: locate his or her city and state on a map.

o Student-Friendly Standards

I can point out where I live on a map of the United States.



Vocabulary

country – land where people have the same laws and leaders

state – the 50 places where you can travel to that make up the United States of

America.

continent – large bodies of land

nation – another word for country

F. Procedure:

1. Refer to notes on “Get Set To Read” TE p. 66

Have the children look at the maps on pages 67, 68, and 69 then ask them what they

expect to learn in this lesson.

Guide the children to complete the handout that I passed out that teaches them what

each vocabulary word means then have them find out where their school lies in the

country, continent, state, and nation.

Remind children that a town or a city is a community. Ask them the name of the

community they’re in and what the address of the school is.

2. Ask the students as a class what a state is and what a country is. After they answer this

have them look at page 66 and work together to see what Carlos’ address is.

3. Have the students look at the map on TE p. 68 then ask them questions under the

section “Continents – Talk about it”. Have the students answer the questions as a

group.

4. Have the students write a sentence that tells me where they live using the words

country, state, and continent. Then have them name what the seven continents are.

G. Assessment:

What will you use to measure student understanding?

Using Review/Assess on TE p. 69, have the students write their address using their

country and continent. EX: I live in the town of Las Vegas, in the state of Nevada, in the

United States, on the continent of North America.

Explain how you will know students understand the concepts from the lesson.

I will understand that the students learned the concepts from this lesson by their answer

to the assessment question. I will have to see that they put the city, state, continent,

and country in the right part of their sentence.

H. Closure:

After the students have turned in their answers, ask a few students, randomly, what

sentence they came up with.

I. Reflection:



1. Which part of the lesson do you think will be the easiest for you to teach?

I think the part of the lesson that will be the easiest is the idea of the 50 states and

the city that they live in. I think it will be easy to get in their head that the city that

they live in is still in the same state.

2. Which part will be most challenging for you to teach?

I think the whole idea of the seven continents is going to be difficult to teach the

students since they might not have heard of all of them until the time I bring them

up. I think if I just get across that we are always in Northern America then the other

continents will click in their mind.

3. How will you follow up or extend this lesson?

I can extend this lesson or follow up with it by teaching them about the globe and

how they can still find a number of answers to their address questions on it.

4. What can you do for students who don’t grasp the concepts?

I think students that don’t grasp the lesson just need more one on one time and a

more hands on approach to the lesson. I can make sure I break down each idea

further so that they fully understand what a state is along with a country.

5. Which part of the lesson, if any, do you think might need to change?

I feel like the way the lesson is set up might need some changing since it might not

flow as well as I think it does. I also think the assessment might not be the hardest

thing to be giving them.

6. When you were writing this lesson plan, what was the most difficult part?

I definitely think the flow of the lesson was the hardest part. I always have trouble

wondering what should be added to a lesson plan and what needs to be left out. I

never want to add information that will just confuse my students.

Documents

First Grade Geography Lesson