Detailed Lesson Preparation Guide

Elementary Education
Name: Lilly Smithdeal

Title: Veterans Day Lesson

Grade: 1st

Concept/Topic: Veterans Day

Time Needed: 25 minutes

Backward Design Approach: Where are you going with your students?
Identify Desired Results/Learning Outcome/Essential Question:
What is Veterans Day and why is it important?
What is a veteran?
What are words or phrases associated with veterans?

Ensuring Lesson supports district and state goals

NCSCOS Standards:
Art Standards: 1.CP.1.4: Create movement that expresses words, ideas, experiences, and feelings.

Social Study Standard: 1.H.1.3 Explain why national holidays are celebrated (Constitution Day,
Independence Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Day, Presidents Day, etc.).

Assessment Plan:
Students will be able to tell me what a veteran is and why we celebrate Veterans Day.
Students will be able to show movements that demonstrate various characteristics of a veteran

Meeting the student where they are:

Prior Knowledge/Connections:
Students may have been previously exposed to the word veteran or the holiday of Veterans Day.
Students may have family members or friends that are Veterans. At the beginning of the lesson, I
will ask and address students prior knowledge about Veterans Day.
Students may have experience with dance where they have previously created movements to
represents feelings or ideas.

Lesson Introduction/Hook:
I will begin the lesson by gathering students on the carpet and asking them if anyone has ever
heard of Veterans Day. I will then ask if students know what a veteran is?
I will show students a chart that will be at the front of the room. As a class, we will fill out the
chart later on in the lesson.
I will then show students a video of other students in elementary school who are reading a
version of the book H is for Honor by Devin Scillian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUPEifhVvpg&t=204s

Heart of the Lesson/Learning Plans

Lesson Development:
After watching the video as a group, I will have students tell me what they learned from the
video. I will ask if anyone has a better idea of what a veteran is after watching the video?
I will fill out the chart with the class definition of a Veterans Day and Veteran.
I will have the students turn and talk with a partner and try to think of different characteristics,
actions, experiences, or words that are associated with veterans. I will ask the students what the
word characteristic means before having them turn and talk.
I will call on group of students to share various words or phrases they came up with while talking
to their partner. I will ask the other students if they agree with the words and then write what
the students are saying on the chart.
Once there is at least 5-8 actions or veteran-related experiences listed, I am going to explain to
the students that we are going to do different dance movements that represent the phrases that
we have listed. This will show me that we really know different experiences related to veterans.
I will ask the students what they think my expectations are for them while we are doing our
different movements. Should we be moving in crazy ways where we might hit other people
around us? Should we be close enough to hit other people? Are we doing any type of movement
that you want to do?
I will explain that I am going to call out a phrase and then give the students a moment to think of
what movement would represent this and then I will ask the students to do it. I will call on some
students to share their movement with the class if they are comfortable.
I am going to send students back to their tables and tell them to stand by their chairs. I will ask
for everyone to put spread their arms out to make sure they have room to move and not hit
their neighbor. I will move students to different locations in the room so that everyone has
plenty of space.
I will tell the students to move around to get all their wiggles out and to loosen their body. I will
model for the students. I will say the word brave and do a movement to represent it.
I will call out the other words and have students do the movements.

Specific Questioning:
What is Veterans Day and why is it important for us to celebrate?
What is a Veteran?
Does anyone know a Veteran?
What are some actions, characteristics, or experiences of a Veteran?
How can we demonstrate these experiences by using various movements?

New Vocabulary:
Veterans Day: November 10, 2017. A day to honor those who have served and are currently
serving in our nations military
Veteran: a person who has fought for our country; protect our country and fight for our freedom
Hero

Concluding the Lesson/Closure/Debriefing:

 After calling out the majority of the words (depending on time), I will have students return to
their seats and retell me the importance of Veterans Day and the definition of a veteran.

Materials/Resources:
Smartboard for video
Chart paper

Teaching Behavior Focus:

Paraphrasing students responses