KUTZTOWN UNIVERSITY

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

PROFESSIONAL SEMESTER PROGRAM
LESSON PLAN FORMAT

Teacher Candidate: Erin Crawford Date: April 24, 2019

Cooperating Teacher: Mrs. Lisa Gross Coop. Initials: _________
Group Size: 12-14 students Allotted Time: 40 minutes Grade Level: Kindergarten
Subject or Topic: Government - Police Officers (Day 3 of the Community Helpers Unit) Section: 931

STANDARD: (PA Common Core):

 5.3.K.C - Identify roles of fire fighters, police officers, and emergency workers.

I. Performance Objectives (Learning Outcomes)

 Students will be able to identify a police officer and what their job is.

II. Instructional Materials

 Smartboard
 Computer
 BrainPOP Jr. Video - https://jr.brainpop.com/socialstudies/communities/communityhelpers/
o username - kutztownu
o password - university1866
 Red and Green Stop Sign (see attached)
 Exit Ticket (see attached)
 Pencils
 Test Dividers

III. Subject Matter/ Content (prerequisite skills, key vocabulary, big idea, new content)
Prerequisite Skills
 Basic fine motor skills
 Ability to follow rules to a game
 Ability to participate in group discussions
 Basic knowledge of what a community helper is

Key Vocabulary
 Community- a place where many people live and work together
 Community Helpers- people who make communities cleaner, safer and healthier
 Police Officer- a person who enforces the law, investigates crime and makes arrests
 Laws- a rule set by the community we need to follow
 Safety- being protected

Big Idea
 There are different community helpers that provide services.

New Content
 Police Officer
o What do they do?
o How do they help us?
 Laws
o What is a law?
o How do police officers enforce these?
 Community
o What it is and that we all live in one.
o How police officers protect it
  Safety
o This is the police officers goal

IV. Implementation

A. Introduction –
 Welcome the children and remind them of our unit, community helpers.
 Review with the students, what a firefighter does (day 2 lesson) and how they help to keep us and
our community safe and review what the word community means.
o Community- a group of people living in a common place, we all live in a community or a
group of people who work together
 Review our community bulletin board looking over the houses and buildings.
 Show the students props that relate to a police officer, have students turn and talk to guess who
our community helper is for the day. Then have them share.
 Tell the students to listen for facts about police officers that they may hear in the video, play the
BrainPOP Jr. Video until 1:07.

B. Development –
 Tell the students that today we are going to be learning about police officers and how they help us
in our community. Ask the students to share facts about police officers that they may have heard
in the video or from their experience. Have students first turn and talk to a partner or their
tablemates before having some students share aloud. Allow time for class discussion.
o Police Officer- a person who enforces the law, investigates crime and makes arrests
 Explain to the students that in our video we heard that police officers help keep our community,
or the places around us, safe and that they make sure the people in the community follow the laws
and they keep crimes from happening.
o Ask the students to turn and talk with a partner about what they think a law is. Also have
students brainstorm examples of laws, such as traffic laws (stopping at stop signs,
wearing seat belts and following the speed limit), as a way to relate to what a law is.
o Then have some students share allowed.
o Ask the students if they have any questions or comments.
 Laws- a rule set by the community we need to follow
 Now that we know, what a law is, tell the students that, "It is the job of the police officers to
make sure that people follow these laws because it helps us all to stay safe and helping us stay
safe is the goal of police officers."
 "Now we are going to play a game to see if you can follow the law and stay safe!" Introduce the
game, red light, green light, by following the directions below.
1. The teacher will stand on one side of the room with a sign that has one side red with the
word stop and the other side green with the word go.
2. All of the students will be on one side of the room, opposite of the person holding the
sign.
3. The goal of the game is to be the first person to make it to the person holding the sign.
4. When the sign is green, it means to walk towards the person holding the sign and when
the sign is red it means to freeze and not walk.
5. Flip the sign back and forth, so the students can "obey or follow the law." Remind the
students throughout the game that they need to follow the law and obey the sign.
6. If a student does not follow the law, they need to take three steps backwards.
7. Play at least one round of the game and if time allows you can play more than one round.
o Ask the students if they have any questions or comments.
 Have students return to their seats and discuss with their tablemates what they thought about the
game and following the law. Ask questions such as, "What did you think about following the
laws in the game? Was following the laws hard or easy? Were the laws important for the game to
work smoothly?"
o Allow time to share, after children get a turn to speak in their group. Walk around and
observe what children are sharing. Ask the students if they have any questions or
 comments.
 Make the connection with the students that when our parents are driving they need to stop at a
stop sign to stay safe, that is a law, and that is why they had to stop at the stop sign and follow the
law in our game as well.
o Ask the students if they have any questions or comments.

C. Closure –
 Have the students turn and talk to discuss what the job of a police officer is. After the discussion
have a student tell the class what a police officer’s job is. Do this to remind the students that it is
the job of police officers to help keep us safe and make sure we follow the laws in our
community.
o Ask the students if they have any final questions or comments.
 Pass out the exit ticket for each child to fill out as the formative assessment for this day’s lesson.
Read each question to the students and have them follow along as you read each question
followed by all of the possible answers. Collect the exit tickets when completed and later check
for completion and take any additional notes (in the additional notes column on the checklist) in
regards to any questions a student may have answered incorrectly. This will help gather data on
what to review the following day.
 Again, remind the students that it is the job of police officers to help keep us safe and make sure
we follow the laws in our community.

D. Accommodations / Differentiation -
 For students with deficits in fine motor skills, provide them with a larger pencil, bingo dotter or a
scribe to complete their exit ticket and final writing assessment.
 For advanced students challenge them to write one more fact they learned about a police officer
on the bottom of their exit ticket.
 For students who have difficulty with formulating full ideas, provide the students with a writing
template for their final writing assessment, so that they can fill in the sentences with their topic
but and not have to write as much on their own.

E. Assessment/Evaluation plan
1. Formative
 Students will complete the exit ticket presented at the end of lesson and turn it in for a check or
minus. A check is given if completed and a minus if it is not completed. In the additional notes,
write down if a student answered any questions incorrectly, so you know what to review the next
day.
2. Summative
 At the end of the unit, the students will complete a written response and drawing of their favorite
community helper. The students will use the template provided to write the name of the
community helper, write two sentences about their community helper and draw a picture
corresponding to their community helper. This will be handed out on day 5 of the unit.

V. Reflective Response

A. Report of Students’ Performance in Terms of States Objectives

Student Objective- Students will be able to identify a police officer and what their job is.

Today was day three of our community helpers unit. The students again, did a great job recalling
the information introduced from the two prior days. They were able to provide facts about firefighters and
they were able to define a community and community helper. In their turn and talks, the students
participated in appropriate conversations that were correlated to each question presented. The students
were actively engaged and were able to reflect at the end of the lesson about police officers. They also
participated nicely in out red light, green light game. They were able to follow our law of stopping when
they saw the stop sign and walking when the go sign was shown. Today we provided the students with
dividers to put up during their exit ticket, to prevent cheating. Below is an evaluation of their exit ticket
assessing them on police officers:

AM- 12 out of 12 students answered all questions correctly

PM- 14 out of 15 students answered all questions correctly

1 out of 15 students answered 2 questions correctly

Today, my cooperating teacher and I believed that the students grasped the idea of taking a paper
“test” more fully. The previous days they struggled following along with the oral reading of each question
and its answers but today they were able to follow along without support.

B. Personal Reflection
1. How clear was I in my instruction? Was it engaging?
I believe I was clear in my instruction for this lesson. The students seemed to grasp the
information I was introducing to them quickly and they were able to discuss the new topics presented.
They were able to participate in turn and talks about the previous day’s lessons and they were able to
discuss the new information and then again later in the lesson recall the same information again. The turn
and talks in my lesson as well as they game helped the students remain involved in the lesson and the new
topic of police officers. During the turn and talks, I observed to make sure that each child had a chance to
speak, making sure all were engaged during the lesson. I did not have to prompt as many students to pay
closer attention as usual which was exciting to see. The game also got all of the students involved in the
topic of the day.

2. Was I able to pace my lesson to fit the allotted time?

I was able to fit my lesson into the allotted time. My maximum time was 30 to 40 minutes and I
remained around the 30-minute mark for both classes.

3. Did the students understand the game and did it tie into the lesson
appropriately?
The students in both the morning and afternoon classes seemed to understand the game very well.
They were able to play the game without confusion and were able to tell me what each side of the sign
meant. They were also able to tell me where they see a stop sign in real life and what you do at it in real
life as well. It was also a great way to talk to the students about different laws that we need to follow and
that our parents follow in our community as well. The students enjoyed the active nature of our game.

4. How could this lesson be improved?

An improvement I made from the morning to the afternoon class was adding a time for them to
turn and talk to discuss different laws that they know of. This provided the students with the opportunity
to apply their learning into their own lives and make that personal tie.

VI. Resources

Community helpers. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2019, from

https://jr.brainpop.com/socialstudies/communities/communityhelpers/

Standard in practice: What it looks like in my classroom – 5.3.K.C. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2019,
from http://www.pdesas.org/ContentWeb/Content/Content/31011/Documents and Manuscripts
STOP
Exit Ticket

Name:______________________________________

1. Who did we talk about today?

A. B. C.

2. What is a law?

A. a rule that is not important

B. a rule we need to follow

3. A police officer helps us stay _____________________.

A. Safe

B. Bad