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University of South Florida

College of Education
Early Childhood Education
We the People Lesson Plan
Introduction
Your
Name
Ashley Nussbaum, Emily Riley, Jennifer
Trisler, and Nina Zabel
Date 9/18/2013
School Bailey Elementary and Trinity Elementary Grade/Age Level 1st Grade
Student
Profile
Ashley Nussbaum:
Boys: 10 Girls: 6_
Students with Special Needs (specify): 4_
All four of these students have IEPs that covers speech and language. These
students receive speech services from a paraprofessional who pulls them from the
classroom twice weekly for thirty minutes.
ESOL Students: 4_
Emily Riley:
Boys: 8 Girls: 8_
Students with Special Needs (specify): 3_
One of the students who is considered special needs wears glasses for reading;
another has ADHD and has been prescribed to take medication for it; and the third
student was born with a cleft palate, so he goes to speech lessons every day.
ESOL Students: 4_
Jennifer Trisler:
Boys: 11 Girls: 12_
Students with Special Needs (specify): 1_
The student who is noted as special needs may have a possible speech delay, but
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does not have an IEP in place.
ESOL Students: 1_
Nina Zabel:
Boys: 10 Girls: 4_
Students with Special Needs (specify): 2_
One child has an IEP that covers speech and language as well as independent
functioning. This student receives speech services; a paraprofessional pulls this
student from the classroom sixty minutes every week for therapy. This students plan
used to include behavior, but has been removed for this year; it is up for review.
The second child also has an IEP that covers speech and language. This student
receives speech services; a paraprofessional pulls this student from the classroom
sixty minutes every week for therapy.
ESOL Students: 5_

Purpose, Rationale, and Considerations
Lesson Title/Topic Mayor vs. Principal
Rationale How is this
lesson connected to
students knowledge, skills,
and experiences?
At Bailey Elementary a new principal has been employed and the
students do not know him very well; it is the same for a good
portion of the staff. Trinity has had the same principal for a while,
but the students do not get many opportunities to interact with her
in the classroom. Learning the authority figures and their powers
will not only give students a lesson in civics, but it will also aid
them in knowing the administration of their school.
Students have had experience helping to create the rules and
procedures in their classroom as we observed during the first few
days of school. This lesson will tie into the aspect of establishing
rules by focusing on people in the school and community who
have the authority to do the same on a larger scale.
Pre-Assessment What We have also noticed that students in both schools do not know
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kind of pre-assessment
data are you using in
planning this lesson?
who their principal is; they also lack familiarity with leaders in
the community who are in power like the mayor. We can assess
this background knowledge through posting a picture of the
mayor and principal with the questions: Who am I? and What
do I do? Students will be able to write on sticky notes and post
their ideas.
Learning Objectives
What are the students
going to learn from this
lesson?
Students will provide the names and roles of the mayor and
principal during discussions.
Students will compare and contrast positions of power by asking
and answering questions about key details in a text.
Standards How is this
lesson connected to the
appropriate standards
(i.e., FL Sunshine,
Common Core, VPK,
etc.)?
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.1: Ask and answer questions about key
details in a text.
SS.1.C.1.2: Give examples of people who have the power and
authority to make and enforce rules and laws in the school and
community.
Assessment Plans
How and when do you
plan to formatively and
summatively assess
students learning of this
lesson?
Formatively we will assess students through allowing for
additions to Who am I and what do I do? posters using different
colored sticky notes for each day. In order to record responses
students will be asked to write their names on the back of the
sticky note.

Students will be summatively assessed through what is written on
the sticky notes that are placed on the Venn diagram. We will
prompt students to put their names on the back of the sticky notes
so that this information can be tracked. A checklist will be used to
record and determine whether students met the objective after the
completion of the lesson.
Time How long do you
plan for the instruction?
We will plan for the duration of the lessons on both days to be
approximately thirty minutes.
Grouping How will you The read alouds, video, principal interview, and Venn diagram
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group students for the
instruction, and why?
portions of the lesson will be done as a whole group activity. The
read alouds are set up this way because it will be useful for the
students to be able to converse on the topic of people in positions
of authority in the school and community during discussions
throughout as well as following the text. In addition, the principal
interview will be in a group setting as it would not be feasible for
the principal to come into the classroom on multiple occasions
because he/she is rather busy. For the Venn diagram creation
students will be gathered as a large group, but individually
placing their sticky notes where they believe they should fall on
the diagram. The students will be working individually to write
down the different qualities or responsibilities of the mayor
and/or principal on their sticky notes before we go over them as a
class.
Materials/Resources
What instructional
materials will you use, and
why?
Pre-assessment:
Sticky notes

Pictures of the mayor and principal

Chart paper
For the opening:
Video of the mayor:
http://www.tampagov.net/dept_mayor/ (to hook students)
City of Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn. (n.d.). City of
Tampa - Home Page. Retrieved October 9, 2013,
from http://www.tampagov.net/dept_mayor/
For the main lesson on the first day:
Whats A Mayor? by Nancy Harris (read aloud)
Harris, N. (2008). What's a mayor?. Chicago, IL:
Heinemann Library.
Sticky notes (to record qualities and responsibilities of a
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mayor)
Writing utensils (to record)
Chart paper (to record questions for the principal)
For the main lesson on the second day:
Principals by Melanie Mitchell (read aloud)
Mitchell, M. (2005). Principals. Minneapolis: Lerner
Publications Co..
Sticky notes (to record qualities and responsibilities of a
principal)
Writing utensils (to record)
Tape or hula hoops (for the Venn diagram)

Instructional Procedures
Opening How will you
hook students interest and
connect it to the main
lesson?
On the first day start out with an introduction similar to the
following. "I know that we follow rules in our classroom. Do
you remember working together to make those rules at the
beginning of the year? Okay, so we make and uphold the rules
in our classroom, but who upholds the rules for the school? Or
the city of Tampa? Do you know? Those are some excellent
ideas. I want to introduce to you Bob Buckhorn, the mayor of
Tampa. He is going to introduce himself and the city and then
we are going to read a book about some of the responsibilities
of a mayor along with the rules they create.

Play the video: http://www.tampagov.net/dept_mayor/
Main Lesson How will you
present and demonstrate the
lesson? How will students be
actively involved? What
After the video, go into the read aloud of Whats A Mayor? by
Nancy Harris. During the read aloud pause to ask questions and
use turn and talk strategy to engage students. Be sure to
emphasize a definition for a mayor and this persons role. A
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kinds of higher-order
questioning strategies will
you use? How will you assess
students learning?
mayor can be explained as a person elected by a community to
make decisions for the people of the city or town with the help
of others.
The pages listed below are the ones that are going to be read
along with possible think alouds and questions:
Page 6: See this bolded word? It is bolded because it is
important vocabulary. We are going to see more bolded words
as I read. This one says municipal government. A municipal
government is the group of people who run a city or town.
(Show a visual of Florida and point out the city of Tampa if
needed.) So, what the text on this page is telling us is that there
are a group of people called the municipal government. Can
you say that? Municipal government. And the mayor is the
leader of these people. (Draw a visual if necessary.)
Page 7: What is a municipal government? Oh, okay. I
remember now, thank you. I see two new bolded words: elected
and citizens. Right next to the word elected in our text it has
another word chosen. So, elected must mean chosen. Lets
reread this sentence changing out the words. Okay, thumbs up
or thumbs down near your chest if that made sense. Looking at
our next bold word, citizens, the last sentence on the page gives
us the definition. For example, I am a citizen, Mrs. Tunnell is a
citizen, Mrs. Shideck is a citizen. People who live in the United
States, like everyone in this room are citizens. But, to vote or
choose the people of the government you must be an adult. You
all will get to do this one day.
Page 8: Municipal area is a fancy way to say city or town. So,
one of the mayors responsibilities is to represent the beliefs, or
what people in their city or town think. If we look at the
picture, the mayor seems to be giving a speech about what the
citizens, people behind him, believe.
Page 9: This page gave us examples of what a mayor might
speak to citizens about. What are some other examples? Turn
and talk to your partner, I will choose three people to share
what their partner said. Im looking for students who are
following our classroom rules and procedures.
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Page 10-11: Remember earlier when we talked about the
municipal government? What does that mean again? A city
council is part of that. The people of the city council help the
mayor to make decisions.
Page 12: Another one of the mayors responsibilities is to make
laws with the help of the city council. What was the other
responsibility the mayor has that we have talked about so far?
(Flip back to page 8 if needed.)
Pages 13 and 14 are being skipped because it does not pertain
directly to the objectives of the lesson.
Page 15 Can someone rephrase or re-say what this page told us
a budget was? (Pick another student to retell what this student
said and explain that you couldnt quite hear the other student.)
Alright, so a budget is a list of money that the municipal
government, the government that runs a city or town, needs to
run the city or town. I understand. We can add making the
budget to our mayors list of responsibilities.
Page 16 will also not be read.
Page 17: This chart tells us about some departments and what
their jobs are. The mayor has the responsibility of working with
these departments.
Page 18 and 19: A mayor can choose the leaders of the
departments or tell these departments what to do.
Pages 20-26 are being left out as these pages talk about types of
mayor governments that are not related directly to the
objectives of this lesson.
Page 27: Before we talk about how someone can become
mayor lets go over some of the responsibilities a mayor has.
(Speaking about the city or towns beliefs, creating the budget,
working with departments, make laws, etc.)
Page 28-29: Who is our mayor?

Explain to students that everyone will receive two sticky notes.
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When they get their sticky notes have students write their name
on the back of both. Then on each of the sticky notes have
students write a quality or responsibility of a mayor. After
everyone has completed this task, call on different students to
share what they wrote and where they got their information
from (e.g. the text, the video, the discussion, etc.). Have
students place their sticky notes on the Who am I and what do
I do? posters.

To conclude the lesson for this day, point out that the mayor
has a very important role to the community and ask students if
they can think of an important leader at the school. Discuss the
various options that the students come up with and reveal that
the position most like the mayor of the city is the principal of
the school. Share with the students the principals name. Ask
the students if they think that the principal would have the same
qualities or responsibilities that they wrote down on their sticky
note to describe the mayor. Brainstorm with students questions
that they have for the principal and record on chart paper.

The following day have the principal make a visit to the
classroom to introduce himself or herself, share about the role
as principal, and answer the students questions. If the principal
is unable to attend on the date planned have him or her make a
short video in which the same ideas are discussed to be shown
to the students. In this case students questions can then be
written and sent to the principal for a later reply. When the
interview concludes, read the book Principals by Melanie
Mitchell (since it is a short and easy book, read the entire
story). Tell the students This book is only about principals, but
when I looked through it before reading it to you all, I found
some things that the mayor does too! It reminded me of our
book from yesterday. Your job is to find similarities between
the things that we read in this book about principals and what
we learned yesterday about mayors. If you notice that the
principal does something the same as the mayor, will you
quietly put a fist in the air? Show me. Thank you! During the
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read aloud pause to ask questions and use turn and talk strategy
to engage students. Examples include:
Page 3: What does the principal use to communicate with the
whole school? I know I have heard Mr. Wallace/Dr. ODea on
the loud speaker. Do you remember hearing them?
Page 4: Who is a principal?
Page 5: What is a community? Who else is important in our
community?
Page 7: Mr. Wallace/Dr. ODea might say hello or good
morning to you. Has s/he? Turn/talk to your partner about a
time that you have spoke to the principal. You can talk about
what they said and/or where you were. We will share after a
couple of minutes.
Page 8: Who is the mayor in charge of? What departments did
he work with?
Page 9: Who does the principal hire?
Page 10: What kinds of rules might the principal make?
Page 13: Have you ever seen the principal walk through the
room? Hes making sure everyone is learning.
Page 19: The mayor took us on a tour yesterday in the video
that we watched. Remember some of the places in Tampa that
we saw? The principal is like the mayor because they both gave
us tours. So, what does the principal do when there is a new
family in town? What might he show the families?
Page 21: Another way to say that they make sure the bills are
paid is that they make the budget. Who else makes a budget?
Go through the same process as the day before with the sticky
notes and discussion.
Closure How will you and
the students wrap-up the
lesson?
Create the outline of a Venn diagram using tape or hula hoops
large enough to house all of the sticky notes. Before beginning
to title/label the Venn diagram have a conversation with the
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students about the purpose of this type of graph. Ask questions
like: I forget, what do Venn diagrams show us?, What goes
in the outside circles?, What goes in the section in the middle
where the circles overlap?, and If I want to compare the
mayor with the principal, what should I label the different parts
of our Venn diagram?. Proceed to label the Venn diagram.

Explain to students that we will draw two sticky notes from the
Who am I and what do I do? posters and ask the students who
wrote the quality or responsibility to place their sticky notes in
the section where they believe it fits. Randomly call, choose
popsicle sticks, or use a checklist to guarantee that all students
get a turn. After students have posted their sticky notes have the
other students agree or kindly disagree upon the placement
before calling the next pair.

Ask students to observe the completed Venn diagram and agree
or kindly disagree with the placement of the sticky notes as a
whole. Ask what observations they made about the similarities
and differences of the qualities and responsibilities of the
mayor and principal.


Extension and Differentiation
Extensions What ideas do
you have to extend this
lesson?
To extend this lesson we have a couple of options. One is that
as a class we can further discuss other people in the
community who have power and authority to make and
enforce rules. For example, above level students could
research the role of governor. Another option is having
students write out questions they still have lingering after the
lesson about the mayors responsibilities. These questions can
be written in the form of individual letters and sent to the
mayor; typed up and sent to the mayor; or students can record
one another asking questions and create a montage to be sent
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to the mayor. If the second option is employed then be sure to
explain to students that the mayor is extremely busy and it
may be a while for a response or that we may not receive one
at all.
ESOL How will you
differentiate your instruction
for ESOL students?
The instruction will be differentiated for ESOL students by
having them just draw out the different qualities or
responsibilities on their sticky notes instead of having to write
it out, however, they can also be given some word translations
to help them if they want to try to do a bit of writing. Teachers
must be sure to write out students responses for assessment
purposes.
Special Needs How will you
differentiate your instruction
for students with special
needs?
If a student has difficulty seeing or hearing, then they may be
placed near the front of the room so that they have an easier
time keeping up with the lesson during all portions of the
whole group activities. If a student has trouble paying
attention, then he or she may be given a stress ball to use
throughout the lesson. Students with special needs are given
the ability to add their sticky note(s) to the Who am I and
what do I do? poster at any point throughout the day.
Students who struggle with fine motor skills are able to write
their responses on a large piece of paper or verbally give
responses for teacher to dictate. The Who am I and what do I
do? poster will be placed at a height that all students can
reach to post their responses. The Venn diagram can be placed
on the wall or the floor for accessibility to all students.
Individual Differences
What will you do if some
students struggle? What will
you do if some students
master the tasks quickly?
If a student is struggling, then he or she may be given extra
assistance such as a list of vocabulary words to help guide
their thinking process. The instructor will also monitor the
students discussions and provide assistance when necessary,
such as reminders of what we learned about in the video/books
and scaffolding for discussion topics. If a student masters the
tasks quickly, then he or she will be encouraged to help other
students, work on writing a letter to the mayor, or brainstorm
ideas to help the mayor make Tampa a better community or
help the principal make the school a better place.
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