Revised January 2012

University of South Alabama

Department of Leadership and Teacher Education
K 6 Teacher Education Lesson Plan Format

Name: Brittany Stanchio Date: November 12, 2015

School: Dixon Elementary School Grade Level: 2nd Grade
Teaching Strategy(ies): Direct Instruction Time Required: 30 Minutes

I. Subject/Content Area
Social Studies/ National Celebrations/Veterans Day

II. Behavioral Objectives

Social Studies-ALCOS #2- Identify national historical figures and celebrations that exemplify
fundamental democratic values, including equality, justice, and responsibility for the common good.
o Describing the significance of national holidays, including the birthday of Martin Luther
King, Jr.; Presidents Day; Memorial Day; the Fourth of July; Veterans Day; and
Thanksgiving Day (Veterans Day)

Using complete sentences and proper punctuation, the student will list at least two Veterans Day facts,
in their flip book, with 80% accuracy.

III. Lesson Concepts -

Veteran- Someone who has served in the Armed Forces
Honor-to show respect
Military-The soldiers of the Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines, and Coast Guard altogether create
a military
Army-a branch in the military trained to serve on land
Navy- branch in the military trained to serve at sea
Coast Guard-branch in the military that guards our coast and is responsible for helping/
saving people on boats and ships that are in trouble; they are also responsible for enforcing
the law and protecting life at sea.
Airforce- branch in the military trained to serve in the air (airplanes, etc)
Marines- branch in the military trained to serve on land or at sea
Armistice Day- This is what November 11 was called before it was called Veterans Day
Leadership- act of being a leader
Qualities- Personalities or characteristics of someone or something

IV. Materials -
Premade Flip Book Templates
Pencil
Markers or Crayons
Phone (Timer for time management)
Laptop (To Connect to FaceTime)
Thank you Poster
Revised January 2012

Smart Board
Premade Flip Book Example

V. Teaching/Learning Procedures
A. Motivation - Did you remember to thank a veteran, yesterday? Today, we will continue to
learn about Veterans day and why this national celebration is so important. We will also have
the chance to use our interview questions, that we came up with, to interview a real Veteran!
B. Instructional Procedures -
Start the lesson with a brief review of what we have learned throughout the week (below).
Tell StudentsThroughout the week we have learned about Veterans day and have read lot of
informational texts about this special day.
We recently talked about the definition of a Veteran. Who can tell me the definition? (allow
students to answer before continuing)
Why is it important to honor (or to show respect to) Veterans? (allow students to answer before
continuing)
Ask Students, Can someone tell me the date we celebrate Veterans day, each year? (allow
students to answer before continuing)
Tell students, This is a challenge question. Ask Students, Does anyone remember what
November 11 was called before it was called Veterans day? (allow students to answer
before continuing)
Tell students, Now that we have refreshed our memory on just some of the things we have
learned about Veterans day, we will FINALLY get to use the questions we prepared to
interview our Veteran. I expect each and every one of you to show your leadership
qualities and be respectful, while we are interviewing our veteran because he is doing
us a favor by taking time out of his day, for this interview. The table speaker will stand
up and ask the Veteran the question the table prepared together previously WHEN I
CALL YOUR TABLE. Table speakers please use your good speaker voice and be loud
and clear when you are asking the questions.
Tell students, Ok I am calling our Veteran now, I will speak with him first. It is always nice to
introduce ourselves to someone in an interview before beginning with questions.
Call the veteran via FaceTime.
Introduce the class to our Veteran and thank him for taking the time out to speak with us.
Allow him to introduce himself to the class.
Once introduction is finished call on each table speaker and allow them to ask the prepared
question for their table.
Once each table has been called and all questions have been answered call on each table to line
up in front of the smart board facing it to say Thank you as they hold up our
Veterans Poster. (This has been rehearsed)
The teacher will thank the Veteran again for all he does for our country and taking the time out
to speak with us again. Then hang up.
At this time the teacher will dismiss students by table to go back to their seats, quietly.
Once each table is back at their seats, the teacher will begin to give instructions for assessment.
The teacher has already prepared the flip book for each student. She will pass them out and
instruct students to get out their crayons/markers/colored pencils and regular pencils.
Revised January 2012

The teacher will model how to create the flip book with her own flip book example. The
students will write fact #1 and fact #2 on the two front flaps. Then students will write a
fact for each flap as they flip it open. On the bottom part of the flip book, students will
draw a picture to match their fact about Veterans day. The facts used are student
choices.
The teacher will walk around the room as the books are being created, helping students as
needed and assessing using anecdotal notes. Once students have finished the flip book,
the teacher will wrap up the lesson with closure (below).
C. Closure - Now that we have discussed Veterans day, interviewed a veteran, and created our flip
books; we have a better understanding of the importance of this national celebration. Do you
think veterans demonstrate leadership qualities? What are some leadership qualities veterans and
soldiers display that might be like the leadership qualities we are learning about in this school
(Leader In Me)? Now you can tell everyone that you have met a real life hero today and we
celebrate these heroes on November 11, every year. Thank you for showing our leader your
leadership qualities, throughout the interview.

VI. Assessment/Evaluation -
The student will create a flip book, including at least two facts, they have learned from the texts and the
interview about Veterans day and illustrate it.

VII. Supplemental Activities (Early Finishers, Enrichment, Remediation)

o Students who finish early will be asked/allowed to write a letter or make a card thanking a
veteran.
o Students who desire enrichment will be directed to research more information and/or facts about
Veterans day on discoveryeducation.com or write a letter/make a card thanking a veteran.
o Students who need remediation in writing complete sentences will be reminded to check for
grammatical errors, using the C.O.P.S. Rule (Capitalization, Organization, Punctuation,
Sentence Structure). If students are still having trouble, they will be provided one on one support
help with grammatical errors. Students who need remediation in social studies will be provided
an individual copy of a Veterans Day passage and allowed to highlight important facts about
Veterans Day on that copy, to refer back to when making their flip books.

VIII. Accommodations for Students with Special Needs

Aiden will be provided with a Veterans Day passage on his level, in which he will be allowed to
highlight important facts in it; and/or one-on-one help from the teacher to help him remember the facts
and create his flip book.
Revised January 2012

IX. Professional Reflection

In this Social Studies lesson about Veterans Day, I feel like I met my instructional objectives and the

students learned a lot about Veterans day. The flip books, made by each student, were used to evaluate what

they learned about Veterans Day. The students were also able to answer many of my questions, throughout the

lesson. Therefore, I feel like they learned what was intended, in this lesson.

The students were very engaged during the whole group portion of the lesson. They were very attentive

and seemed to really enjoy the interviewing the veteran. At the end of the interview, every student stood up and

thanked the veteran,while holding the Thank You poster. I believe the students were productively engaged

during whole group instruction because they asked questions that they came up with and wanted answered. I

think the use of technology keeps them very engaged, too.

However, there are a few changes I would make to the independent writing portion of the lesson for

future uses, for continued student engagement. First and foremost, I would model every step of the independent

activity exactly the way I want them to do it. Since I had an example flip book completed with the facts and

illustrations in it already, I caught myself explaining what I wanted them to do for the activity and showing

them the example. I should have modeled each step, including writing the facts and maybe even modeling how

I think aloud, by asking myself questions as I went through each step. I believe proper modeling, would have

eliminated a lot of the questions I was asked throughout the activity.

Second, I would create some sort of layout, on chart paper or the smart board, that had some vocabulary

words pertaining to Veterans Day for the students to refer back to while writing their facts in their flip books.

Some words I would include on this layout would be veteran, Armistice, Allegiance, honor, Star-Spangled

Banner, hero, leader, and many more. This would serve as a great prompt for students and spark ideas about

some of the facts learned, throughout the week. It would also be helpful to students for spelling purposes.
Revised January 2012

Lastly I would give instructions, before beginning the activity, for what I want the students to do, if they

finish early, while waiting on the rest of the class to finish. At the end of my lesson I had students off task, with

nothing to do, because I forgot to give them the instructions of what to do if they finished early. However if I

would have given these instructions before beginning the activity, the students would have known exactly what

I expect from them and it would help keep students on task.

Throughout the lesson, I altered my instructional plan slightly during the independent writing activity.

In order to prompt students and spark ideas, I asked several open-ended questions that helped lead students to

various facts learned about Veterans Day. As I walked around the classroom prompting and helping students,

my instructional plan was unintentionally altered with how I would evaluate students. In my plan I listed that I

would evaluate students via anecdotal notes, yet it became more of a teacher observation evaluation. Although I

knew what I would evaluate the students on, I should have created a grading rubric to assess students, instead of

relying solely on anecdotal notes.

Although prompting students by asking various open-ended questions to help them get on the desired

path can be considered a form of an accommodation; I did not need to provide any of the accommodations

listed, during this lesson. Though, I believe the vocabulary layout previously mentioned would be a great

resource that would have further enhanced the lesson by providing students with support.

In conclusion, if I had the chance to teach the lesson all over again to the same group of students, as I

mentioned earlier, I would have done several things differently. I would be sure to model each step of the

activity as I went through them, to help avoid confusion and provide some kind of vocabulary setup as a

prompt for students to help spark ideas about some of the facts learned. My instructions would be more precise,

given before beginning the activity, and I would be sure to include what I want students to do, if they are to

finish the activity, early. I would also create a grading rubric for the lesson activity. I believe taking these steps

would make the lesson more effective and keep the students engaged, the entire time.