Step 1: Enter Basic Information About the Lesson Organizing Theme: I Spy Name of Lesson: History Detectives Author:

Breanne Davis Lesson Grade Level: 3rd grade Time Required: 40 minutes Step 2: Select the Subject Area(s) and Specify Learning Targets Subject Area(s): X ELA - Reading Science ELA - Writing X Social Studies Math Other Other Other Core Standard(s): RI.3.7 Use information gained from illustrations (e.g. maps, photographs) and words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g. where, when, why, and how events occur). Function of Lesson: Introduce New Skill or Content Remediation/Reteaching Review Activity Goals/Objectives: What do you want your students to KNOW? What do you want your students to UNDERSTAND? What do you want your students to be able to DO? Students should be able to show complete understanding of nonfictional text by identifying the main idea and supporting details of the text after having read the text once independently and once with a partner. X Practice

Step 3: Identify The Instructional Materials &Technology To Be Used With This Activity Plan - History Detectives Info Sheets (You should have 3 total copies of each individual History Detective Info Sheet Edition; 2 copies for each pair and 1 copy for teacher use). - A large magnifying glass for each student - A History Dective Pad (small post-it note pad) for each pair Step 4: Instructional Strategies & Learning Activities - Specify the procedures that will be used to implement the activity plan. OPENING -Anticipatory Set Time: 5 minutes 1. Pass out a History Detective Info Sheet to each student. You can either randomly pass out the Info Sheets or strategically pass them out (intentionally pairing certain students together). 2. Ask students to silently read the bold heading of their info sheet and instruct them to THINK about what they already know about the topic indicated in the heading. In this lesson, each heading should indicate a specific U.S. president. So, give students about one minute to think about what they already know about the U.S. president their Info Sheet describes. Students can write what they already know on the back of their Info Sheet if they wish.
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3. After students are done thinking, have the students PAIR up using the edition number indicated at the top of their Info Sheet. Editions will be titled edition 1, editon 2, edition 3, and so on. So, each student should find the other student who has the same Info Sheet edition as them. This will ensure that only that pair is researching that specific U.S. president. BODY Procedures What will you say and do? Time: 20 minutes 4. Explain to students that the text on their Info Sheets was printed too small! In order to effectively research their assigned U.S. president they must become History Detectives, utilizing magnifying glasses. Model to students how to use a magnifying glass. 5. Pass out a magnifying glass to each student as well as a History Detective Pad to each pair. 6. In their pairs, have students use their magnifying glasses to read the small text on their info sheets. During this time the pairs should be working independently from one another, in other words, students should only be collaborating with their partner. Before they read, instruct students to take notes while they read. Tell them to jot down any important ideas or details about their U.S. president that they learn while reading. They should jot these notes down on their History Detective Pads. Tell students they should jot down at least 5 key details about their U.S. president. CLOSURE Time: 15 minutes

7. When students are done researching in their pairs instruct each pair to choose what they feel to be the 3 most important details on their U.S. president that they recorded on their History Detective Pads. 8. Finally, tell each pair to SHARE their 3 details with the rest of the class. Make sure each pair states the name of their U.S. president before presenting the 3 details they chose during their research. Pairs should present one at a time to the rest of the class so that the whole class can learn about all the U.S. presidents researched by students during this lesson. 9. After the lesson is over make sure to collect the magnifying glasses and the History Detective Pads. Step 5: Research & Theory - Explain how child development and/or learning theory influenced your activity design.
John Dewey explains that children learn through social interactions and hands-on experiences. This lesson allows students to research together, collaborate, and share thoughts and ideas while at the same time providing them with a more hands on way of researching. Rather than students using technology to simply look up the information I provided them with hard copies of info sheets so they can have the information right in front of them without the distractions of all the ads that litter the interenet. I also made sure to include that the teacher should model how to use the magnifying glass. I did this because of theory presented by Bandura. Bandura explains that children imitate what they see. Because children are so quick to model that of practically anyone or anything they see, as teachers we need to make sure we model things appropriately, positively, and effectively. So, since student may not have ever used a magnifying glass before we need to make sure to model how to use the device/utensil correctly because children will model exactly what you do.

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