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1. Literature Selection
Waters, K. (1996). On the Mayflower: Voyage of the ship’s apprentice and a
passenger girl.
2. Theme
The book, On the Mayflower, by Kate Waters is a book about two individuals who
have many difficulties through their journey to North America. The theme of this book is
hardships. The story will allow student to engage in activities allowing them to discover
the meaning of what a hardship is (past and preset), which deal with a person’s
emotions as well. This is a topic that many of them will not study on their own and
3. Additional texts
George, J. (1993). The first Thanksgiving. New York, NY: Puffin Books.
McGovern, A. (1991). If you sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. New York, NY:
Scholastic, Inc.
San Souci, R. (1991). N.C. Wyeth’s pilgrims. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle
Books.
4. Unit Plan—Planning Stage-Include a graphic organizer. See example
below.
Presentation, Maps,
who and tell, brochures,
debates, menus, food
power points boxes,
letters,
journals
Shows/movies, radio
and songs, students
reading,
presentations
5. Activities!
Activity 1: Letter Back Home
GLE: W3A2, b: Recognize different forms of written communication (e.g., thank-you
notes, friendly letters, lists, poems, invitations).
Activity: The students will write a letter back home. They are to write the letter as if
they are a member of the Mayflower and writing back to family or friends in England.
They will identify the parts of a letter: return address, date, salutation, body, and
signature with closing. Students will see an example that I have created, but their
imagination is key to complete the body.
Technology Resources: A sample letter will be on the SmartBoard and students will be
allowed to type their finish letter in Word.
Activity assessment: Teacher observation will be used during the activity to monitor
student work and responses. Students will write a letter independently which will be
accessed accordingly.
Objective: Students will be able to use words related to the topic of hardships and the
Mayflower by creating a brochure about Plymouth.
Activity: When creating a brochure the students will use words that they have been
learning in our short unit over the hardships on the Mayflower. Words will include but
are not limited too: apprentice, caulk, dire, fearsome, fortnight, oakum, younker, and
so forth (can be found in the glossary of the book). The students will learn about
these words using a word wall and will be given examples of a brochure (which
students can bring in as well).
Activity assessment: Teacher observation will be used during the activity to monitor
student work and responses. Students will create a brochure independently which
will be accessed using a check list.
Objective: Students will be able to understand five new words by writing in a daily
journal.
Activity: The students will write three to five sentences in their daily journal using two
new words that we discussed in class. The words will be talked about in small
groups, as well as added to a word wall for them to be “found” on. The first day I will
demonstrate what a journal can be used for.
Technology Resources: A sample journal will be on the SmartBoard and students will
be allowed to type their journal on a protected online “diary” site (with parent’s
permission) as a finish product. The Journal will be first written in a standard
notebook that is left in the room.
Activity assessment: The teacher will observe while the students write daily in their
journals. The journals will also be checked each night to make sure the students
meet the following check list.
3 – 5 Sentences? Yes/No
Objective: Students will be able to identify the important parts of a map as well as
understand the journey that the Mayflower took by creating their own map.
Activity: After class discussion that covers maps and how they are used as a tool, the
students will then first help the teacher design a map of the classroom. They are
then going to independently create a map that shows the route that the Mayflower
traveled.
Activity assessment: Teacher will observe the students work and then grade the
following map by using a checklist.
Map Check
List
Objective: Students will all be able to demonstrate appropriate volume while giving a
presentation OR a skit that tells a story of children having hardships in their travels.
Activity: After completing research, and allowing for time to plan a skit or presentation,
the students will then perform their skit. Students will also demonstrate their focus
on how to share ideas appropriately.
Technology Resources: For fun educational reasons students will be able to watch a
YouTube video on the smart board that shows what a skit is and how it clearly
conveys and idea or message.
Activity assessment: The students will have to meet the following checklist.
Skit Check
List
Students in Yes/No
audience can
clearly state the
idea of the shown
skit? Showing
that they heard
the speaker
clearly.
Objective: Students will be able to follow and give oral directions by pretending to play
a game called “Captain” on the ship.
Activity: The game “Captain” is like “follow the leader” meets “Simon says” meets
“charades”. The student that is the “captain” will ask for all students to deliver
certain task. Task will start off easy such as “row” (students do rowing motion) to
more complicated task such as “Please go to your desk, find the sharpest pencil, and
bring back for your captain to use to draw on his map.” The task will be selected
from a hat where the Teacher has provided enough ideas for each student to be
“Captain”. All students will have a turn to be Captain to complete ONE task. The
teacher will give a few different examples. This game can also meet the listening
GLE’s for students to listen to task being given by the Captain.
Technology Resources: Appropriately themed music will be playing softly while the
student play captain.
Activity assessment: This activity will mainly be assessed by observation from the
teacher. However, the student will receive points based off of the following rubric.
1. Still needs work. 2. Almost there! 3. You are a
leader!
Objective: Students will listen to other students ready and show their listening skills by
writing in their journals what the students had read.
Activity: A variety of students and/or the teacher will re-aloud either to pairs, in small
groups, or to the entire class. The listening students will then be asked to write a
short paragraph in their daily journals about what they just heard. For this
assignment I am going to address it as if the teacher was reading to the entire class.
The teacher will give an example of what a short summary is using “somebody
wanted but so” method.
Technology Resources: Big book will be read aloud and sample readings will also be
read off of the SmartBoard.
Listening Check
List
Objective: Students will be able to sit quietly and focus on watching an educational
video about the adventures of the Mayflower.
Activity: During and educational video the students will be able to prepare for a video
(lights out, eyes forward, mouths off, ears on) and maintain their focus to understand
the main point of the video. The students will then participate in a group discussion
over the video and what it was about. The teacher will then help the students learn
how to write a chain of events diagram based off of what the students learned in the
video.
Technology Resources: The video will be watched on the SmartBoard and the chain of
events diagram will also be displayed there too.
Check marks: Students will receive a check mark for each “infraction” that caused any
disruption to them or their classmates during the movie. For every two “infracts” the
student will lose one point of his or her participate points. Infractions include but are
not limited to the following:
Does not corporate when preparing for the movie (cleaning off desk).
Talking out loud.
Getting up.
Moving around in seat or on floor.
Sleeping.
Not watching the screen and looking “lost in space.”
6. Groupings
Whole-class
Read Aloud
Hardship Discussions
Small-group
Presenting a skit.
Reading aloud.
Using maps.
Individual
Design a brochure
Reflection
Daily Journal
7. Schedule
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Objectives:
Students will be able to demonstrate written forms of communication by
writing a letter back home.
GLE:
W3A2, b: Recognize different forms of written communication (e.g., thank-
you notes, friendly letters, lists, poems, invitations).
Modifications:
Students’ needs will be met by making sure their IEP’s are properly satisfied.
For students who have difficult learning, they will sit closer to the teacher.
Visually impaired students will sit close to what the class is reading or
looking at. ADD/ADHD students will be motivated to work independently and
on task.
Materials/Media/Resources:
Waters, K. (1996). On the Mayflower: Voyage of the ship’s apprentice and a
passenger girl.
New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.
http://www.letterwritingguide.com/
http://cityteacher.wordpress.com/2007/09/25/friendly-thank-you-letter-using-
thinking-maps/ This is a great site that uses thinking maps.
Sample letter:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/en/f/f0/LaTeX-letter.png
Anticipatory Set:
Good morning class! Lets gather around the smartboard screen today. Can
anyone tell me what we are looking at? Has anyone seen this before? Yes,
this is a letter and today we are going to learn how to write a proper letter by
writing a letter back home. The book we read yesterday about the hardships
on the Mayflower voyage will be the subject of our letters.
Instructional Input:
Today we will be talking about the important pieces of a letter. The first is
the return address, date, salutation, body and signature with closing. Let’s
write a practice letter together following the sample format.
The first is the return address. This is your address where you live. Let’s
write our school’s address here.
Next is the salutation. That is a big word; does anyone know what it means?
It’s the introduction to the letter, who you are writing to. Who do we want to
write our letter to class?
Write down the person that we are writing to.
Write two short paragraphs over the topic that the class chooses.
Now to close the letter we have to tell them to have a nice day, thank you,
even love you is a closing which is then followed by a signature. How would
you like to close our letter class?
Modeling/Demonstrating:
Modeling is very similar to the instructional input. I demonstrated while I did
my instruction. However to demonstrate more I would show more sample
letters to the class.
Class on this sample letter can you find the signature?
Excellent, now can you tell me what the body of the letter is?
Wonderful, what is this that I am pointing at class?
Perfect, it is the date! Now what do we use start the letter with, the very fist
thing we write?Awesome, we always write the return address first!
Wonderful work everyone!
Guided Practice:
I have sample parts of a letter that the students will then place in the correct
order, it will be a puzzle of sorts for guided practice.
We have been doing such a great job that I have a new challenge for
everyone. The post office accidently chopped my letter into these pieces
and I need your help to place them back in the proper order. Do you think
you can do that? Excellent. Please help us place the pieces on the board.
Checking for Understanding:
I will watch closely as students sort the pieces of the letter puzzle to properly
write a letter. They should be able to follow the letter format to form a
proper letter with their pieces. I should actually see the students working
and can watch for any mistakes that are going to occur. This is learning
time so it will be good to see what students come up with. I will also ask
questions during instructional input to make sure the students are on the
‘right page’.
Independent Practice:
Everyone seems to be getting this really well. Now you are going to write a
letter back to someone in England. Remember that you are a passenger on
the Mayflower so you can use new words that we have been learning. The
letter should follow the proper format that we have discussed in class. Now
let’s get started! I can’t wait to read your terrific letters!
Closure:
Today we talked about the proper letter format that ties in with our
hardships in history unit. Tomorrow we will share our letters, if you want,
and then start talking about what we can do improve our writing.
Evaluation/Assessment:
Teacher observation will be used during the activity to monitor student work
and responses. Students will write a letter independently which will be
accessed accordingly.
Date Date missing. Date not in proper All parts of the date
format. are there.
because I did not understand the content but because it was hard for me to relate to the
lectures. I value reading and find that it is very important. However, when it came to
designing mini-lessons for elementary ages I was clueless. I felt as if I didn’t know how
teenagers; although that does sound crazy (even for me) it is a calling that I am
following after. Math has always been easy for me and it’s something that I find
beautiful. It’s a universal language it takes place in our every day lives it just incredibly
fascinating.
lesson plan to teach reading, strategies, comprehension, etc, was not something I was
as interested in. As much as I fought this class every step of the way, I did write those
This semester what I did understand was the difference between phonics and
phonemic awareness. I didn’t realize until this class how much went into reading. I
thought children just “learned” that they just “picked up” on reading. I had no idea that
there were different strategies to teaching. That someone has to teach spelling,
grammar, and comprehension and make sure that all concepts link and interact with
each other to make for a more solid educational experience for students.
I now have a lot of respect for elementary teachers. I use to honestly think they
had the easiest job ever. They got to play games, read easy books, and color all day
long. But now, oh my goodness, elementary teachers have four times more GLE’s than
I have. Those teachers are trying to help students master certain levels in a variety of
Because I now have a small idea of what elementary teachers are doing I can
now communicate with them on how to build a better foundation for middle school
students (if necessary). I now understand where my students are coming from; by
knowing where someone has been I better understand where we need to go.
Because of my educational growth of this area I know that one day when I have
kids I will be better prepared to help them to learn how to read. That because of this
when I would question why I was in the class at all for I felt like it did exactly go along
with teaching upper division math (geometry, algebra, etc.) but that didn’t make the
class any lesson important. Although I did not think it was something I ever wanted or
educator it is all right for me to educate myself in a variety of areas so I can be better
rounded person when it comes to my knowledge for I will never know what my
students will need most. I might have some math students who need help with
reading, and I am now better prepared because of this class. Thank you.