Detailed Lesson Plan Preparation

Elementary Education

Name: Katherine Hill

Title: Exploring Landforms

Grade: 3

Concept/Topic: Landforms

Time Needed: 30 minutes

Note: A detailed lesson plan is specific enough for another teacher to read and teach
effectively. There should not be any question regarding what to do or how to do it.

Backward Design Approach: Where are you going with your students?

Identify Desired Results/Learning Outcome/Essential Question:

What defines a geographic region?

What are the characteristics of landforms? (Valleys, plateaus, mountains, hills, plains, islands, peninsula)
How are human and physical characteristics related?

NCSCOS/Common Core Standards:

3.G.1.2 Compare the human and physical characteristics of places

3.G.1.5 Summarize the elements (cultural, demographic, economic and geographic) that define regions,
community, state, nation and world.

3.V.2.3 Create art from realistic sources of inspiration.

Assessment Plan:

I will circulate while partners are discussing to see if their creations resemble the landform they chose. If
it does not, I will stop to ask the student to clarify and clear up any misconceptions.
Meeting the student where they are:

Prior Knowledge/Connections:

Students read books from various countries last quarter and some talked about the landforms that are
prevalent in that country. Students should be familiar with plateau and mountain landforms. Students
also briefly discussed major landforms (valleys, hills, islands, peninsulas, plains) last week in social
studies.

Lesson Introduction/Hook:

Ask students to identify what landforms they remember reading about in Module 1 of the EL curriculum.
Have them recall what they know about those landforms.

Have students recall other landforms they talked about last week during SS.
--Prompt students to say landforms are physical features (last week you talked about landforms and
climate and plant life and bodies of water what do we call those?) I will add that landforms are
physical features that define geographic regions.

Heart of the Lesson/Learning Plan:

Differentiation/Same-ation:

By allowing students to create landforms of their choice, they can choose ones they are more
knowledgeable about/comfortable with. Pictures are going to be included with the chart for those
students who may not know the name but could identify features with a picture.

Students will gain practice describing to their peers. Everyone has a chance to share what they made
either with the class or a friend.

Lesson Development:

After discussing prior knowledge of landforms, together we will fill out a chart on the smartboard that
has the seven landforms above. There will be a picture beside the landform name. As a class and using
their social studies books, students will list out defining features of the landforms and I will record them
in the chart. Students will be asked to come to the board and draw a representation of a specific
landform. We will also identify one geographic region they know this landform is present.

Students will then create landforms using playdough. They will have to mold the play dough to the best
of their ability to reflect the landform of their choice using the information from the chart.

Once they have finished their landform, they will pair up and guess what their partner made. Once the
partner has guessed their landform, students will have to explain to their partner why their creation
represents their landform (i.e. tell how they incorporated the characteristics.)
After they discuss with their partner, we will come back together as a class and opposite partners should
describe their partners landform.

Then if time permits, students will create the landform their partner made or another one of their
choice if partners was the same as theirs.

Specific Questioning:

Does anyone remember reading about specific landforms in their EL lessons? What were they? What did
you learn about that landform?

What are some other landforms you have learned about in social studies?

Can you draw a picture of this landform on the smartboard for me?

What landform are you creating? What defining features have you included?

Can you tell me what your partner told you about their landform?

What do you notice about Student As landform and Student Bs landform? What is similar? What is
different?

Did you find anything challenging when creating your landforms?

New Vocabulary:

Geographic region- the location of a specific place

Concluding the Lesson/Closure/Debriefing:

After students have made their second landform, we will discuss them as a class. I will ask one or two
students to describe their landform. Then I will pick two students who made the same landform and we
will compare and contrast them. To close, I will ask students if they thought there was anything
challenging about forming the landforms with the playdough.

Ask students if they can identify anyway human characteristics are related to landforms.

Materials/Resources:

Smartboard
Playdough
Social studies textbook
Chart

Teaching Behavior Focus:

Demonstrating withitness when problems arise.

Follow-Up Activities/Parent Involvement:

Students can write a reflection about the challenges they faced while trying to create their landform or
how this activity helped them better understand their landform.