Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Name: Kaytlen Thrift Central Focus/Big Idea of the Lesson:

Budgeting plays an important role in making
Grade Level/Subject: 5th Grade/Social Studies, Language Arts educated financial decisions. Poetry can be read and
analyzed to find the meaning and ideas in the writing.
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective:
5.E.2.1 Explain the importance of developing a basic budget for spending
and saving. Date taught: 3/22/18
RL.5.5 Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to
provide the overall story, drama, or poem
Daily Lesson Objective:
Social Studies: Students will be able to explain the importance of creating a budget and develop their own personal
budget.
Literacy: Students will be able to read and evaluate a poem, annotating important details and figurative language in the
poem and utilize these annotations to have a meaningful conversation about the poem.
21st Century Skills: (Go to this link for more info about these Academic Language Demand
skills:
 Critical Thinking & Problem Solving Language Function: explain, evaluate, utilize, develop
 Financial, Economic, Business and Entrepreneurial
Literacy Vocabulary: budget, figurative language,
 Communication personification
 Creativity
Discourse: Turn-and-Talk and classroom sharing and
discussion

Syntax: Exit Tickets

Prior Knowledge: how to read and annotate a passage, how to use annotations to hold a discussion about the passage,
some figurative language knowledge, knowledge of how money is used, knowledge of spending and saving

Activity Description of Activities and Setting Time

I know you guys have been working on poetry this week, and today we are
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1. Focus and Review going to continue with poetry. We are also going to do some social studies
seconds
and discuss how to keep track of how we use our money.
Today we are going to read and discuss the poem The Giving Tree. We are
2. Statement of Objective 30
also going to use this poem to discuss how we budget, spend, and save our
for Student seconds
money.
To start our lesson today, we are going to read and annotate The Giving Tree. 15-20
3. Teacher Input
When you are reading, I want you to pay attention to important details in the minutes
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 story, such as characters and their point of view, events, and any figurative
language you see that may affect the meaning of the poem. After you have
read, we will discuss poem and what you have annotated. I will give about 5
or 6 minutes to do this. Now that you have read we are going to discuss the
poem. The teacher will use what the students have annotated to help guide
the discussion. The teacher will also be sure to cover: the personification of
the tree, how the boy changed over time, how the tree changed over time,
the feelings of both characters in the story.
“Let’s talk about how the boy used the tree. How can we compare the boys
use of the tree to how we use money? Turn-and-Talk about this and then we
will share out some ideas.” After allowing some students to share, the
teacher will guide the conversation by discussing how we use money for
goods and services. “The boy used the tree as a resource to make things. He
used the tree to obtain new things, like a house and a boat. We use money in
this same way.” The teacher will then begin a discussion about budgeting.
“Who knows what a basic budget is? Turn-and-Talk about this with your table
groups and then we will share out.” After allowing some students to share,
the teacher will guide the conversation by defining a budget and discussing 15-20
4. Guided Practice
how we use our money. “A basic budget is a plan for how future income will minutes
be used, it includes plans for both spending and saving money. A budget is
like a guide to show how the money we receive, or income, will be used. A
budget is used to help keep track of how money is used. Now that you know
what a budget is, think about the boy in the poem. Do you think he budgeted
the tree? If so, did he do it well? Turn-and-Talk to your table about this and
then we will discuss.” The teacher will allow students to share and then
facilitate discussion by asking students questions such as, “How could the
boy have budgeted the tree better?” “Can you relate the tree to spending
and saving money?” “Do you think the boy did a good job of saving?”
For social studies independent practice, students create a “budget” with
their own giving tree. They must draw their giving tree and show how it will
be budgeted. They will also write a paragraph about how they would budget
the tree wisely. Their basic budget must include how money will be both
spent and saved. For literacy independent practice, students will answer an 5-10
5. Independent Practice
exit ticket question about the poem. The exit ticket question is as follows: minutes
Give one example of figurative language in the poem and include the
sentence or phrase from the poem that includes this figurative language.
Also, write one to two sentences that describes and summarizes the events
and details in this poem.
Social Studies assessment: Students can earn up to ten points, and 8 out of 10 points is
considered mastery. Students will receive: 2 points for the drawing, 3 points for showing
6. Assessment Methods of
how they would budget (this must include spending AND saving), and 5 points for the
all objectives/skills:
paragraph explanation.
Literacy assessment: Students can earn up to ten points, and 8 out of 10 points is

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 considered mastery. Students will receive: 2 points for an example of figurative language
and 3 points for including the sentence or phrase, 5 points for giving an one to two
sentence description and summary of the details in the poem.
“When you have finished your drawing and paragraph, I will collect these.
Once you have answered the exit ticket question on sticky note, place the
7. Closure 2 minutes
note on the exit ticket poster and I will collect these. Then we will move on to
what Mrs. Higgins wants us to do next.”
Overall, most students in the class achieved mastery on this assessment. Students who did
8. Assessment Results of
not achieve mastery were deducted five points for not including a written explanation of
all objectives/skills:
their budget.
Targeted Students Modifications/Accommodations: Student/Small Group Modifications/Accommodations:
For ELLs, pictures will be used to accompany To extend the social studies content, small group discussions
vocabulary terms. ELLs in this class also have could be held concerning each individual’s budget. The
translation dictionaries. The use of “Turn and Talk” and conversation would dive further into how each student would
peer communication will also be beneficial to ELLs, as personally construct a budget and whether or not this is a wise
it allows them to express their ideas orally and hear way to budget.
the ideas of other to help inform about the topic. To extend the literacy content, small groups could be
Students that benefit from multiple learning constructed based on student’s exit ticket responses.
techniques will benefit from speaking to partners Struggling students could read through the poem with the
(auditory), using the giving tree as visual for their teacher and discuss what information is important to annotate
budget (visual), and drawing their giving tree to understand the content of the poem. The teacher would
(kinesthetic). also review the figurative language in the poem.
Materials/Technology:
The Giving Tree poem for each student, pencils and paper, highlighters, blank paper and coloring supplies,
sticky notes

References:
Reflection on lesson: (Write several paragraphs about what you learned from this lesson. What were the strengths?
What were the weaknesses? What did you learn about teaching and student learning? How would you teach this lesson
differently in the future?

Overall, this lesson went well, and the students were engaged throughout the entirety of the lesson. One of the specific
strengths of this lesson was that students seemed to enjoy the make your own giving tree activity. They liked the idea of
being able to plan a budget. The way in which students were asked to budget was open, and some students chose to
budget for their futures, including things like college and children and their budget, while others chose to budget for the
present, including things such as sports equipment and makeup. Another strength of this lesson was that students were
involved and engaged in discussion. It was not difficult to get the students talking about their opinions of the boy’s
budgeting of the tree in the poem and they were eager to share their ideas.

While this lesson held many strengths, it also held some weaknesses. One of these weaknesses was that some students
got overly invested in creating their tree and I had to encourage them to work quickly so that they would have time to
complete the rest of the activities given to them. This was my first time planning and teaching an integrated lesson and
it became clear to me that when doing so, time can become sparse depending on the activities given to students. Also,

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one weakness was that I often had to repeat and remind students of instructions. Providing instructions on the board
would have resulted in me having to answer less clarifying questions. My CT also gave the suggestion that, if time
permitting, this lesson could have taken place over the course of multiple days. I completely agreed with this statement
and that if I would have been able to do so, this lesson would have been less rushed.

In teaching this lesson, I learned that integration can be difficult. I think my first integrated lesson was successful and I
was proud of my overall product, but, I know I can continue to sharpen my skills in the future. I wouldn’t say I learned
this, but I observed how students become excited and engaged when a creative aspect is introduced in a lesson. The
students really enjoyed creating a budget for their own giving tree and I wish I could have given them more time to do
this assignment. I also learned that when teaching a lesson, time flies by! I was worried that my lesson would not take
up the forty-five minute block of time allotted to me by my CT, but I quickly learned that forty-five minutes is a short
amount of time when teaching students a new topic as well as giving them time to complete multiple tasks.

If I were to teach this lesson in the future, I would definitely take the advice of my CT and spread the lesson out over the
course of multiple days. Also, I would like to make the giving tree activity a project that students could spend more time
on. I think this lesson would be benefited by allowing students to research how budgets are created and what types of
expenses to consider when making a budget. I also would like to allow students to further exercise their creativity by
allowing them to create a giving tree using multiple artistic mediums that could be presented to the class.