Discipline Topic: Social Studies

 
Target Population:

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Population Characteristics: These children are five years of age and are beginning to learn about where they live.  Part of this knowledge includes understanding what distinguishes the city from the country.  Since many of the students are visual learners, many of them will benefit from using Kidspiration and the internet as learning tools.

Lesson Groupings: Students will be working individually.

Curriculum Links:  In the last lesson, students took a community walk and noticed various characteristics about the city where they live.  In this lesson, they will identify characteristics of both the city and the country, and will be able to distinguish between the two.

Objectives:  Students will able to distinguish between city and country.

National Standards:

NYS ELA Standard 1.  Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding.

NYS ELA Standard 4.  Students will read, write, listen, and speak for social interaction.

NETS 1. Use input and output devices to successfully operate computers, VCR’s, audiotapes, and other technologies.

NETS 4. Use developmentally appropriate multimedia resources to support learning.

Materials:      - Kidspiration

                        -City and Country Poem (Friends and Neighbors Chart, Macmillan-McGraw Hill—2002)

                        -Webwhacker                      
 

1. (1 minute) Review the characteristics of a city from yesterday’s walk.

2. (3 minutes) Have the children look at the city and country pictures to the right of the poem on the large chart. 

            Ask: What do you notice about the city?  What do you notice about the country?  Have     the children share their responses.

3. (3 minutes) Read the City and Country poem aloud, stopping to point out different elements of a city and country.

4. (2 minutes) Ask: What can you find in a city? (answers will include tall buildings, many people lots of cars) What can you find in the country? (answers will include farms, woods, cows, roosters, fewer people)

5. (10 minutes) Using Webwhacker, students will look under “Social_Studies Sites” to view websites that let them see the characteristics of cities and countries first hand. 

6. (15 minutes)  Now that children have viewed the photographs, they can classify characteristics of the city and country using Kidspiration.  They simply drag click pictures from the symbol library into either the city, or country box. 

7. (1 minute) Students will print their graphic organizers.

8. (5 minutes) Students will share what pictures they put in each category.

9. (5 minutes) Wrap up.  The teacher will ask students to explain the differences between a city and a country.

Evaluation of Students: Below is rubric for this lesson.  The rubric is divided into three sections: beginning, developing and secure.  The teacher will check off each child’s performance level, based on their ability to distinguish between the city and country.

Evaluation of Lesson:

The lesson will be evaluated based on the print-out of their graphic organizers.  If the children can properly classify the city and country characteristics, I know that they have mastered the material.  However, if they put pictures in boxes where they don’t belong, I will know that I need to revisit this lesson.