American Symbols
Lesson Plan: Identifying American Symbols
Olivia Nance
Purpose
1. To be able to identify different symbols that are important to America and why
2. To focus on what we as Americans see as symbols of the US and why
3. To improve students knowledge about why the American symbols are important to us
Lesson Summary
The students will be put into groups of four and try to come up with as many symbols of America that they can think of in thirty minutes. After they have had thirty minutes they will now collaborate with another group, combined answers, and see what else as a group they can come up with within the next fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes they students as a group will pick five of their symbols, research them, and draw and color their symbols. The students will be researching the importance of their symbol and the history of it. After the students do a week of researching and draw their pictures of their five symbols the students will create a poster bored on their five symbols and present to the class what they have learned about their symbols and the importance of them.
Lesson Narrative
Introduction: Review the criteria for the poster. The main criteria are that for each symbols their needs to be the history and the importance of each symbol and there should be a total of five symbols. The poster and the symbols should be colorful and well thought through. Both the symbols and the poster should be very easy to read and engaging for other students.
Presentation: For the presentation the students will present in their groups of four what they have researched in the past week. Each group will research answers to questions such as where is the statue of liberty located?, why is it located there? , Why is it the color it is? The group’s will then highlight on a poster bored the background and history of their four symbols. The poster should be colorful and eye catching. Each group will then present their poster to the rest of the class. Students will practice presentation skills by listening to one another, respecting others opinions, and speaking clearly and loudly.
Debriefing: After each group has presented, the class will come together. They will come together as a class, discuss and determine what all of the symbols mean to us as an American citizen. They will discus what symbol means the most to them and why.
Grabber: The grabber for the students will be an eye-catching video about the four national symbols of America. This video allows the students to engage and learn the background of what a symbol is and what the four nations symbols are and what they stand for. The grabber will force the students to expand their thinking on not only the Us symbols but other symbols that around us in society. This video will not only catch students attention that want to learn more about symbols and America but also kids that like to sing. The video has a catchy song that plays explaining the symbols and what they are. This is a fun way for students to engage with the video that is being presented.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3auxqCEUyU
After showing the informational video the students will then be split into groups of two and will start doing a symbol activity. For this activity the students will create one 3-D symbol and share the face about the symbol to the class. This project should be creative as possible. The students will then present their projects to the class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p9He3YhBXo
This instructional video shows what you need in order to make an American flag out of Popsicle sticks.
Cumulative Activity: The students will be asked to go home and find one face on a specific symbol. They will all draw out of a hat to decide what symbol of America they will be researching. The students will come back the next day ready to incorporate their fact into their poster bored. Each student will get paired with a student in the fifth grade, someone that has already done this project. The fifth grader will help will help the student with preparing on how they will present and also helping guide the research. The students will all have to participate in presenting; everyone has to speak, and know about the symbols of America. The presentation should be at least 30 seconds but no longer than two minutes. This will include showing the poster and 3-D object to the class along with the fact you found at home. The information that will be presented is presented with knowledge and creativity. By the end of this project the students will have more knowledge on the American symbols.
Assessment: Before leaving class students will complete an exit ticket. This exit ticket will make sure that the students retained information from the lesson and learned about the American symbols. The students will get out a piece of paper and write down one fact about an American symbol and it cannot be one of their own facts. The students will hand this in before they can leave the classroom.