Mini Lesson Plan Template

Teacher Candidate Name

Maddi Smith

Subject/Anticipated length of the lesson

2 hours

Grade
4

Date
11/30/16

MN Academic Content Standards:

4.6.7.7 Conduct a short research project that builds knowledge through investigation of different
aspects of a topic.
ISTE 3a
Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for
their intellectual or creative pursuits.
Student Objective(s)/Learning Target(s):
I can
Make connections and answer text dependent questions within a story
Research my name by using different sources (books, internet)
Use technology to convey my research

Academic Vocabulary
What terms and/or concepts will students need to know in this lesson?
Origin, Popularity, Alternate Spelling, Etymology
How will you teach this vocabulary?
Have the terms and definitions on the smartboard. Students will try to match each term to its definition.
In the end, all of the terms and definitions will be matched and can be reviewed for the rest of the
lesson.

Materials Needed for Entire Lesson

Digital Technology:
Smartboard, iPads, CD
player

Smartboard, Google Slides, Tablets or Laptops

Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks

Time

20

Frontloading, the Anticipatory Set: What attention grabber/hook will you use to get students
into the lesson? Consider establishing relevance, asking higher order thinking questions and using
hands-on experiences that draw in your students and get them excited and ready to learn.
Ask who has ever heard of the name Chrysanthemum? What makes this name
special?

minutes
Time
10
minutes
10
minutes

30 min

30
minutes
Time
20
minutes

Read the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes out loud to the class.
The Instructional Sequence
After the book have a discussion using the questions: How did she
get her name? Why is her name important? How did she feel when her classmates
were bullying her about her name? How did she feel about her name in the end?
Why is your name special?
Pull up terms about names on the Smartboard. Have students try to
match the term to its correct definition. (Origin, Popularity, Alternate Spelling,
Etymology)
Have students research their names in baby books
Have students use tablets or computers to research their names
Questions to be answered: What is the etymology of your name?
What is the origin of language behind your name? Are there alternate spellings?
How popular is your name?
Each student will add a slide to the existing google slides that
answers as many of these questions as possible.

Closure: How will you involve students in closing the lesson (i.e. revisit and
assess progress toward meeting the objective/learning target)?
Each student will present their slide using Google Slides.

Rubric for assessment:

Criteria

Exemplary

Meets standard

Working to standard

Voice

Clear and well-paced

Clear or well-paced

2 pts.

1 pt.

Needs to be clear,
well-paced
0 pts.

Content

Lesson activity using

an interactive
technology supports
the student in
deepening their
understanding the
learning objective
and practicing the
learning objective.
2 pts.

Lesson activity using

an interactive
technology supports
the student in
deepening their
understanding the
learning objective or
practicing the
learning objective.
1 pts.

Lesson activity using

an interactive
technology does not
support the student in
deepening their
understanding of the
learning objective or
practicing the
learning objective.
0 pt.

Includes one
interactive
technology

Yes
2 pts.

No
0 pt

States learning
objective

Yes
1 pts.

No
0 pt.

Grammar & spelling

Virtually no errors
3 pts.

3 -5 errors
2 pts.

>5 errors
1 pt.