Lesson Plan: What is Teamwork?

Students: Third Grade Students at the Penn Alexander School Anticipated Time: 30 minutes Goals/Objectives: Students will listen to and read along with the poem Nine Gold Medals from Chicken Soup for the Childs Soul Each team will discuss what the poem is about and where in the poem they saw teamwork. In their small groups, students will identify words that come to mind when thinking about teamwork As a class, we will use these words to formulate an operational definition of teamwork and a set of vocabulary words. Students will be able to define what it means to be a teammate and apply this definition to future activities Standards: CC.1.2.3.B - Ask and answer questions about the text and make inferences from text; refer to text to support responses. Materials and Preparation: 24 copies of the poem Nine Gold Medals Poem displayed on SMART Board SMART Board graphic organizer Sharpened pencils Writing journals Plan Hook (5 min.) Before distributing a copy of the poem to each student or showing them the poem on the SMART Board, teacher will remind students: As you already know, Im going to be teaching for the entire week. My focus this week will be on teamwork. Together we will figure out what teamwork is, look at examples of teamwork in our community and throughout history, and apply what we know about teamwork to how we work as an entire class and how we work in small groups. Teacher will then tell the students that just as we collectively came up with new classroom rules, we are going to come up with a class definition of teamwork that we can apply to ourselves every day, both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. Body of Lesson (20 min.)

Teacher will have a student helper hand out a copy of the poem Nine Gold Medals to each student. While the helper is passing the poem out, teacher will pull the poem up on the SMART Board. Once each student has received a poem, teacher will read the poem out loud to the class as the class reads along. After reading the poem aloud, teacher will ask students to read the poem again silently and then discuss the poem in their small groups. In their discussions, students should try to find examples of teamwork in the poem. Students will also be asked to come up with three words that come to mind when thinking about teamwork and will be asked to write these three words in their writing journals. After their small group discussions, teacher will put the teamwork graphic organizer on the SMART Board. Teacher will have students share their thoughts and conversations from their groups and will record these on the graphic organizer. Students will also share the three words that they wrote in their writing journals. Anticipated response words include: Cooperation Responsibility Determination Dedication Perseverance Support Respect

Although it is not explicitly stated in the poem, and depending on students responses, teacher will tell the students that: Teamwork is when a group of people work together toward a common goal.

Wrap-up (5 min.) Students will then be asked to think of places where they see teamwork: Can we think of examples of teams besides sports teams? Anticipated responses include: Fire department A team of protestors Teams of teachers Families Astronauts A band of musicians A team of doctors

To conclude, teacher will tell students that the SMART Board graphic organizer will be made into an anchor chart for display in the class to remind us of how we can act like teammates and what teamwork looks like.