Hannah Freifeld

Dr. Johnson
MGP335
09 Oct 2015
Geography Lesson plan (Day 2)
1.0 Lesson Plan Details
Lesson Title: Exploring South Africa
Day Number: 5 (Day 2 of Geography lesson)
Author: Hannah Freifeld
Grade Level: 6th Grade
Expected Duration (# minutes): Approx. 50 min.
Concepts:
o Using outside resources to learn about geographical features and locations in
South America
Vocabulary:
o The six locations in South America:
Sao Paulo, Iguazu Falls, Salar de Uyuni, Santuario de las Lejas, Galapagos
Islands, Amazon Rainforest
o Any vocabulary that a student comes across in his/her article will be addressed
during the period
Skills:
o Map skills
o Summarization skills
o Cooperative grouping
1.1 Integration of Learning Outcomes/Objectives
Students will identify key facts in the selected articles about the various locations in
South America (Sao Paulo, Iguazu Falls, Salar de Uyuni, Santuario de las Lejas,
Galapagos Islands, Amazon Rainforest)
Students will construct a flipbook in small groups containing information about the six
selected locations in South America
1.2 Standards & NCSS Themes
Standard(s):
7.2.6.A Describe the characteristics of places and regions
7.3.6.A Describe the human characteristics of places and regions using the following
criteria: population, culture, settlement, economic activities, political activities
NCSS Theme(s):
NCSS.1.3.d Help learners to locate, distinguish, and describe the relationships among
varying regional and global patterns of geographic phenomena such as landforms, climate,
and natural resources

NCSS.1.3.e Challenge learners to speculate about and explain physical system changes,
such as seasons, climate, and weather
NCSS.1.3.f Ask learners to describe how people create places that reflect culture, human
needs, current values and ideals, and government policies
NCSS.1.3.g Challenge learners to examine, interpret, and analyze the interactions of human
beings and their physical environments
NCSS.1.3.h Have learners explore the ways Earths physical features have changed over
time and to describe and assess the ways historical events have influenced and have been
influenced by physical and human geographic features
1.3 Anticipatory Set (10 min.)
(End of day 1: Students will have explored six locations in South America and completed
a worksheet as a guide)
Show the map of South America projected on the white board. Have students come up to
the board and mark where each of the six places is located on the continent.
o Have the six places listed on the board for reference
Sao Paulo, Iguazu Falls, Salar de Uyuni, Santuario de las Lejas, Galapagos
Islands, Amazon Rainforest
The goal of this is for students to see that South America is composed of very different
landscapes and characteristics
Teacher Talk:
Good morning students! Today we are going to pick up on our geography activity form
yesterday. Can anyone recall what we worked on? (Student responses) Lets review the six
places. Here is a map of South America (Continent projected on board). Can I have a
volunteer come to the board and put an X on one of the locations? Make sure to label the
place. (Volunteers come up until the map). Now that we know where our places are, lets put
on our scavenger hunt hats on and explore these places a little further. (Students will then be
put into groups and each research one of the specific locations in South America).
1.4 Procedures (20-25 min. research/15 min. flipbooks)
1. Break students up into groups of six. If there is an uneven amount, teacher will create the
remaining pages for the group flipbook.
2. For each group, each student will be given an article about one of the six places in South
America. This way each student in the group will be in charge of one page of the book.
Students will independently read their article and highlight key facts/important
information on their location. (OBJ: Students will identify key facts in the selected
articles about the various locations in South America (Sao Paulo, Iguazu Falls, Salar de
Uyuni, Santuario de las Lejas, Galapagos Islands, Amazon Rainforest)
3. On a separate sheet of paper, students write down at least six facts that they want to
include on their page of the flipbook
a. The separate worksheet will count as formative assessment
b. If student is off track (writing down trivial facts), teacher will ask students
questions to see if they get the big ideas of the article and have him/her reevaluate
the facts

4. When students have key facts, each group gets construction paper and markers to create
the flipbook pages
a. Flipbook will have a rubric
(OBJ: Students will construct a flipbook in small groups containing information about the
six selected locations in South America)
5. As students are creating the pages, teacher will pass out pictures of each place that can be
glued to the other side of the page
6. At the end of class, the pages will be handed in to the teacher for assembly
a. The final flipbook will be used as for summative assessment (rubric)
Teacher Talk:
Today we are going to work on two activities. The first is a research activity and the second is a
flipbook activity. For part one, everyone is going to break up into groups of six. (Teacher assigns
groups) Each person is going to get an article with information on one of the places we marked
on the board. Independently, read the article from beginning to end and highlight any important
facts about your place. I will pass out a guided questions worksheet that will help guide your
thinking. When you are done reading, write down your main ideas on a separate sheet of paper.
Please raise your hands if you have any questions when reading! For part two, everyone will
take his/her facts and write them down on a piece of construction paper. When every group is
done I will assemble the pages to make a group flipbook! I will be walking around to see what
everyone has found and to guide you in the right direction.
1.5 Differentiation
For students who need a lower-level reading material, a summarized version of the text
will be substituted for the original article. This will allow those students to participate in a
way that will help them learn rather than feeling overwhelmed.
For ELLs and/or students who need extra guidance, the guided questions worksheet will
be altered by having specific guided questions related to the article they receive. They
will have to search for specific answers that focus on the big ideas. This will hopefully
prevent them from getting distracted or writing down unimportant information.
For students who are more advanced, students will take the key points they found from
the article and write a small paragraph summarizing the information. The paragraph will
be used for their flipbook page.
1.6 Closure (5 min.)
As students wrap up their pages for their flipbooks, inform class about the next topic in
the unit
o Next topic is about different cultural groups in South America (Individuals,
Groups, and Institutions)
Make the connections for students that some of the groups they will study may have lived
in in/near the locations they just studied.
Teacher Talk:
Before we wrap up our geography activity, I want everyone to keep in mind all of the new
information we learned about the six locations in South America. Tomorrow when we move

on to learning about different groups in South America, we can try to locate where the
groups live on the map. Maybe some of our groups lived near a place we just researched!
1.7 Formative/Summative Assessment of Students (P-12)
Formative
o After reading their respective articles, students will write down key facts on a
piece of paper before transferring their idea into the flipbook. Teacher will walk
around and check the papers before they receive construction paper.
If a student is off-task, this is the time for the teacher to help guide the
student toward the big ideas of the article
o OBJ: Students will identify key facts in the selected articles about the various
locations in South America (Sao Paulo, Iguazu Falls, Salar de Uyuni, Santuario de
las Lejas, Galapagos Islands, Amazon Rainforest)
Summative
o Students will be graded on their page of their group flipbook
o Rubric will be out of 12 points
o They will be graded on the following criteria:
Content Accuracy
Have at least six key facts
Grammar
Spelling
o Students will construct a flipbook in small groups containing information about
the six selected locations in South America
1.8 Materials/Equipment
Student Materials/Reading Resources
o Articles on locations
Sao Paulo
http://www.brazil.org.za/sao-paulo.html
Iguazu Falls
http://www.dbrazil.org.za/iguazu-falls.html
Salar de Uyuni
http://www.donquijote.org/culture/bolivia/places/parks/salar-de-uyuni
Santuario de las Lejas
http://unusualplaces.org/las-lajas-sanctuary-an-amazing-sight/
Galapagos Islands
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1
Amazon Rainforest
http://www.worldwildlife.org/places/amazon
o Guided questions worksheet
o Highlighter
o Construction paper
o Location pictures
o Glue sticks

o Rubric
Ideas from:
http://mrsdifabiosclass.weebly.com/uploads/8/0/7/7/8077508/magnetism_f
lipbook.png
Teacher Materials/Resources for Lesson Design
o Projector
o Whiteboard markers
o Stapler
o Content notes
Sao Paulo
http://www.brazil.org.za/sao-paulo.html
Iguazu Falls
http://www.dbrazil.org.za/iguazu-falls.html
Salar de Uyuni
http://www.donquijote.org/culture/bolivia/places/parks/salar-de-uyuni
Santuario de las Lejas
http://unusualplaces.org/las-lajas-sanctuary-an-amazing-sight/
Galapagos Islands
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1
Amazon Rainforest
http://www.worldwildlife.org/places/amazon
Literacy Chart
Website/Source

http://www.brazil.org.za/saopaulo.html

http://www.dbrazil.org.za/iguazufalls.html

M.I. Minor
Influence or
S.I.
Significant
Influence
S.I.

S.I.

If S.I.,
include why
credible

Reliability

How easy is
it for
teachers to
access?

How easy i
it for
students to
access?

Provides
condensed,
qualitative
summaries
of the big
ideas about
Sao Paulo
Provides
condensed,
qualitative
summaries
of the big
ideas about
Iguazu Falls

(.org
website)
Copyright
brazil.org.za

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

FREE

FREE

Difficult
need to go
on the
website
http://www.
brazil.org.za
/saopaulo.html
and seach
Iguazu

Difficult
need to go
on the
website
http://www.
razil.org.za/
aopaulo.html
and seach
Iguazu

(.org
website)
Copyright
brazil.org.za

http://www.donquijote.org/culture/ S.I.
bolivia/places/parks/salar-deuyuni

http://unusualplaces.org/las-lajassanctuary-an-amazing-sight/

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1

http://www.worldwildlife.org/plac
es/amazon

http://mrsdifabiosclass.weebly.co
m/uploads/8/0/7/7/8077508/magn
etism_flipbook.png

Kim Rohrer

S.I.

S.I.

S.I.

M.I.

S.I.

Provides
condensed,
qualitative
summaries
of the big
ideas about
Salar de
Uyuni
Provides
condensed,
qualitative
summaries
of the big
ideas about
Las Lajas
Sanctuary
Provides
condensed,
qualitative
summaries
of the big
ideas about
Galapagos
Islands
Provides
condensed,
qualitative
summaries
of the big
ideas about
the Amazon
N/A

Constructed
half of the

Falls in the
searchbox. It
is the first
link

Falls in the
searchbox. I
is the first
link

FREE
Very easy
(Found from
Google)

FREE
Very easy
(Found from
Google)

FREE

FREE

(.org
website)
Unusual
Places
Copyright
2015.

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

FREE

FREE

(.org
website)
UNESCO
World
Heritage
Centre
1992-2015

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

FREE

FREE

(.org
website)
2015
World
Wildlife
Fund

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

FREE

FREE

Mrs.
DiFabios
rubric
Pretty
reliable
(Consistent
information)
Reliable
Used the

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

Very easy
(Found from
Google)

FREE

FREE

N/A

N/A

(.org
website)
19962015 don
Quijote
Salamanca
S.L.

content
outline

resources
stated above

1.9 Technology
Computer
o Use for anticipatory set for the continent, South America
Projector
o Project South America on the whiteboard
2.1 Reflection on Planning
Throughout the planning process, I have had the opportunity to delve into the various
components of constructing a social studies lesson plan. Before this assignment, I was unaware
of what composed a content-rich social studies lesson, let alone a whole unit plan. The first
section that I worked on was the content notes. Although its understandable that the content
holds the core structure of the lesson, it was by far the most time-consuming aspect of planning.
The difficult part was not figuring out what content I wanted to focus on, but finding appropriate
websites as well as making sure it was suitable for the objectives I wanted my students to meet.
At one point, I had to change one of my locations in South America because the websites
available did not fit the needs of my lesson as well as having excessive advertisements. Having
to deal with the Internet and endless websites made me realize that I need to allot a generous
amount of time for research.
Once the content notes were completed, it was easier to see what direction I wanted my
lesson to take. Being that my lesson was day two of the two-day geography topic, Kim and I
were able to collaborate to make a cohesive lesson. My content and concepts piggybacked off of
day one, which primarily introduced the locations using Google Earth. I wanted to make my
lesson connected so that students could have another opportunity to work with the same
locations. Phoebe suggested for students to make a flipbook so they could showcase what they
have learned. I loved the idea and in turn constructed the lesson based off of that concept. The
summative assessment then became the final flipbook pages from each group (supplemented
with a rubric).
The final component that I worked on was the anticipatory set. The main goal for me was
to find a way to smoothly segue from the end of day one into day two. Although short, I believe
that having students come up to the board both helps refresh their memories as well as allow
them to move around. After writing the lesson, I went back to see what could be altered to suit
differentiation. To my surprise, I was able to manipulate various aspects to meet the needs of
different learners. By changing the reading level of the articles, altering the guided questions
worksheet, and adjusting the delivery for the flipbook pages, more students will be able to
complete the lesson at an either independent or instructional level.
The potential successes of this lesson are that students will take away a better
understanding of what geographical features South Africa has to offer. Through a mixture of
different activities over the two days, all students should be confident in the content they learned.
A potential concern is that although the articles can be differentiated, will students with IEPs or
in need of extra assistance be able to get through the research activity without extensive
scaffolding? If I were to revamp this lesson, I would consider breaking the students into reading
groups or a division in some way that will benefit my lower-level readers.
As stated previously, this lesson planning experience had brought to light what is
necessary to construct a proper social studies lesson plan. Now knowing how to not only

construct a lesson plan, but also be able to fit it into a larger unit has made me more confident in
how to approach this in the future.

Name:_______________________________________
Guided Questions Worksheet
Geography: South America
Use the following questions to guide your reading:
1. What environment is your location in?

2. What is the climate like?

3. Are there any species native to your location?

4. What is the history?

5. What is the population like? Who lives there?

Date:____________________

6. What is your locations purpose? In other words, does it help society in any way?