Unit Topic or Theme: States and their capitals

Grade: 4th

Lesson Topic or Theme: State Capitals

Lesson Objectives: The students will be able to identify the states and their capitals.

Instructional Technique: demonstration, quiz

Instructional Materials:

-answer sheet worksheet

-computer with internet access

 Theoretical Perspective:

This unit and lesson are important to learn because students should know about the country they live in.  If a student continues through life without knowledge of where they live they will be lacking in information they should know.  By learning about the states and their capitals students have a greater sense of the cities that make up the United States.  The quiz is only a small portion to help students test what they know, but the research project the quiz lead into really helps students learn more about a state capital.

 

 Procedure:

A. Introductory Activity

The students see how to do the first question as the teacher models for the entire class how to answer and record.

B. Development

Next, each student attempts the quiz on their own.  With each question they have to write on the worksheet what is given and circle if it is a state or capital.  As the students guess the answer, they should be recording each guess they make and marking the correct guess some how.  With each correct answer students should choose to learn more about that city and view the sites provided.  Once the students have finished the quiz they should hand in the worksheet for viewing.

C. Closure

Once the students have finished they will be introduced to their research project.  The students will choose one capital and do research on it to later write a report and share with the class about their chosen city.  After the students finish their quiz they are given time to think about whether a city site provided interests them or look for their own capital cities site.

D. Adaptations

For an ELL student a teacher could choose to do a read aloud peering for that student.  If possible, the teacher could sit with the student and read the questions and answers for that student.  If not possible, the ELL student could be paired with another patient peer who will read the questions and work with the student to guide and support him/her through the lesson.

E. Homework

The homework will be to choose a capital city that interests them, and beginning research on it to make sure that is really what they would like to do their project on.

 Evaluation:

At the end of my lesson my hopes are for the students to have a better understanding of the capitals and their states.  Though the quiz is short and does not cover every capital it will give the students an idea of where they are at with knowing the state and the corresponding capital.  At the end of the lesson, I will view the worksheets to see how many tries it took the student to get the correct answer.  Viewing the guesses and answer helps me see how well they are doing and if they need another try at the quiz, more time to study and learn them, or whether most students seem to have a good grasp over the cities.

B. Concerns or questions you have about teaching this lesson?

My concern with this lesson is the fact that the quiz is only a piece of the total information.  There are only 8 questions when there are 50 state capitals, so I worry that it will not be a complete help on how well the students seem to be learning the capitals.  Should there be multiple quizzes or will this quiz be a tiny snapshot of how well the students have been learning?

Worksheet

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