Unit Plan #1: Where in The World Are We?

Submitted By: Amy Branstetter

Unit Plan #1: Reflection Page

1. Where did you get the ideas and materials for this unit plan? Include website names & URLs, book titles and authors. I found ideas from the Houghton Mifflin Social Studies textbook and the eTeacher assignment we did. Besides using the social studies etextbook, I referenced an old textbook (Houghton Mifflin, 1997) that I have in my resources. I wanted to check and see what level of thinking and comprehension was occurring at the second grade level. It has been awhile since I was in a second grade classroom, but I enjoy this age group. I had a clear vision when I first started, but the materials I was finding online were not supporting my ideas. When Id find something it would be with a whole different theme, book, or grade level. I finally mixed and matched to fit my ideas and fit the pieces together that I thought would come together as a whole. Some of my resources and motivation came from the following:
Houghton Mifflin Social Studies- etextbook (Student and Teacher) Houghton Mifflin Social Studies- Work Together (1997) textbook. The childrens books: o All Families Are Special by Norma Simon o All Kinds of Families by Norma Simon o Everybody Cooks Rice by Norah Dooley

http://www.theworksheets.com/s/Map+skills+Worksheets/1 http://www.worldmapsonline.com/LESSON-PLANS/table-ofcontents-lesson-plans.htm http://www.education.com/worksheets/secondgrade/#grade:second-grade www.access2academics.com http://www.teachnology.com/lessons/lsn_pln_view_lessons.php?action=view&cat_id =4&lsn_id=2211 http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

Some ideas and worksheets I was able to take from other lessons and folders I have created in the past.

Nevada State College EDEL 453 - Spring 2013

Karen Powell- Instructor

Unit Plan #1: Where in The World Are We?

Submitted By: Amy Branstetter

2. What were the easiest and most challenging parts of writing this unit plan? The easiest part of writing the lessons was thinking of a million ideas that I could not incorporate into my tiny lesson plans. The hardest part was trying to refine all my unrealistic expectations down to just a few ideas, then a few less of those ideas. Also, time and indecisiveness were both challenges for this assignment. I feel that both of these contributed a little bit during in the creation the Unit #1 Lesson Plans. I think its definitely more challenging when your collaborating little pieces to a bigger puzzle. In this case, I had two additional partners and I would venture to say there might be less of this challenge with only one partner. 3. Who was your partner for this assignment? How well did you and your partner work together? How did you split the workload? Carla McMillan and Rhonda Darter were my partners for this assignment. I thought we worked pretty well together and I knew in advance that they would submit their work on time. Although it took longer than I anticipated coming up with a theme, once we decided on one it went fairly smoothly. One of the problems was compromising on a grade level and theme, so nobody really had a clear idea of what we wanted to do when we first started. I ended up creating an outline with our objectives and a main overview of the lesson plan themes objective as a guideline kind of. We ended up dividing the lesson load by 3-2-2. I created and submitted 3 lessons (one was my eTeacher lesson), and my partners each created and contributed 2 lesson plans each (one was their eTeacher lesson). 4. What will you try to do differently next time you work with a partner? Next time around, I would like to come up with our theme and be on the same page to start off. If we decide on a theme right off the bat it frees up all that indecisive time and allows more time for the actual lesson planning. The one thing I cant really produce right now is more time, so I need to be able to work smarter and quicker for these unit assignments. Id like to start the next Unit Plan #2 now actually, because my workload is so insane this semester. Its not just my workload, but my peers as well. I anticipate by the end of the semester Ill be like, Prepare a Unit lesson in a week.no sweat!

Nevada State College EDEL 453 - Spring 2013

Karen Powell- Instructor