SETON HILL UNIVERSITY

Lesson Plan Template

Name Miss Teitelbaum

Subject Social Studies

Grade Level 3rd Grade

Date/Duration November 6, 2018 / 60 minutes

RATIONALE Standards (SAS and PA Keys)

5.1.3.A – Explain the purpose of rules, laws, and consequences.

5.1.3.B – Explain rules and laws for the classroom, school, and community.

Big Idea Statement

Laws are rules that are enforced by a community or country and apply to all of
its citizens. Every community has a different set of laws to keep its citizens safe
and secure.

Essential Question Statement

 What are laws, and who makes them?

 Why is it important that we have laws?
 How are laws different in different kinds of communities, such as a
school or a town?

Objective (Audience, Behavior, Condition, Degree)

All third grade students will be able to identify and explain rules and laws in
various communities by individually completing the three circle Venn Diagram
and the poster with at least 85% accuracy.

ELL Stage 2 (Emerging) Objective: The student will be able to identify and
explain rules and laws in various communities by individually matching the
sentence strips with the appropriate community, drawing a picture to go along
with each provided law, and verbally describing why each is important with at
least 70% accuracy.

ELL Stage 4 (Expanding) Objective: The student will be able to identify and
explain rules and laws in various communities by individually writing at least
two laws in each of the three circles and creating the poster with at least 75%
accuracy.

Vocabulary
 Law – a system of rules that a particular country or community
recognizes as regulating the actions of its members
 Rule – one of a set of understood regulations or principles governing
conduct
 Community – a group of people living in the same place or having a
particular characteristic in common
 Leader – the person who leads or commands a group, organization, or
country
 Citizens – an inhabitant of a particular town or city
Common Phrases
 Venn Diagram
 Secure
 Difference
 Similarity
 Reasoning

LESSON PROCEDURE Pre-Assessment of Students

Ask students for volunteers to explain what a law is. If no satisfactory answers
are given (that laws tell people how to act in a country or community), adapt by
asking students what a rule is. Use the poster of classroom rules as an example
if necessary.

Activating Prior Knowledge

Ask students to give examples of classroom rules, such as keeping hands and
feet to yourselves, using kind words, and spitting out gum before class. Relate
the idea of classroom rules to laws in a larger community.

Objective Statement & ELL Language Objectives

We will learn about laws that can be found in different kinds of communities,
and why we need to have them.

ELL Language Objectives: We will read the laws and decide what type of
community they belong with.

We will learn how to write our own laws and describe why they are important.

Hook/Lead-In/Anticipatory Set

Watch the video “Why We Have Rules: Basic Concept of Laws for Kids”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhWVQQQ5hVU

After the video, discuss why it is important to have rules and laws, why the
citizens in the video were unhappy both with the kings’ rules and with having
no rules, if it is right for only one person to make the rules for everyone, and
who should be involved with deciding laws.

Modeling the Concept

Have students sit on the carpet in the front of the room. Ask students to provide
examples of different types of communities (answers should include areas such
as school, home, town, various clubs or groups they may be part of, etc.). Write
 their answers on the front board. Then ask for several volunteers to verbally
explain a rule that they must follow in one of the communities listed on the
board.

Guiding the Practice

Provide students with a three circle Venn Diagram that is labeled “home,”
“school,” and “town.” Explain that students will be coming up with rules that
apply to each of the three communities, and filling out the Venn Diagram.
Encourage them to think of rules that are different between the three
communities, rules that two communities share, and rules that apply to all
three.

As the students work, walk around the room and observe what they are writing.
If students are struggling to come up with ideas, ask questions such as, “What is
something you aren’t allowed to do at school?” or “What is something you have
to do at home?”

Providing Independent Practice

Explain that students will now pretend that they are the ruler of their own
country. They must come up with at least three laws for their country, and write
several sentences explaining why each rule would benefit the citizens and keep
people happy or safe. Allow students to use poster paper and markers to create
a poster in which they list their laws. Laws can be as serious or silly as they
want, as long as they explain their reasoning.

Closure/Summary/Review of Learning

Ask for volunteers to share one of the laws that they created, along with their
explanation as to why it is a good rule.

Ask the class overall once again why we need laws, and what they think would
happen if we didn’t have them.

TRANSITIONS The Modeling the Concept activity will take place on the carpet in the front of
the room. Afterward, put on music and allow for one minute of stretching or
dancing before students return to their desks.

Call students table by table to get the poster paper and markers before creating
their law posters.

READING MATERIALS, “Why We Have Rules” video:

TECHNOLOGY, AND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhWVQQQ5hVU
SUPPLIES
SMART Board
Markers
Poster paper
Pencils
Highlighters
Three circle Venn Diagram papers
Papers with three separate circles
 Rule sentence strips
Adapted poster boards with laws written out and space for drawing

EVALUATION OF THE Formative Evaluation

LEARNING/MASTERY
OF THE CONCEPT Hang the finished law posters around the room, and grade whether students
complete the three laws and explanations, and if their explanations completely
address how each law would be beneficial.

Summative Evaluation

Collect the Venn Diagrams at the end of the activity and evaluate the accuracy of
the rules that were stated and whether the student was able to identify rules
that apply to multiple communities.

INDIVIDUALIZED ELL Student #1: 3.2 Listening, 2.9 Speaking, 2.4 Reading, 1.9 Writing (Emerging
STUDENT SUPPORTS Stage)

ELL Student #2: 4.8 Listening, 4.8 Speaking, 4.4 Reading, 4.6 Writing
(Expanding Stage)

Accommodations

ELL Student #1 (Emerging): Have student verbally explain why their laws are
beneficial instead of creating written explanations. During the initial video,
provide the student with a sheet that explains in standard, concrete terms the
main points of the video to help them follow along.

ELL Student #2 (Expanding): Instead of a Venn Diagram, the student will be

given three separate circles, in which they will write laws pertaining to their
town, school, and home.

Modifications

ELL Student #1 (Emerging): Instead of filling out the Venn Diagram with laws
that they come up with, the student will be given sentence strips containing
simply stated laws and accompanying pictures to place in the proper spaces on
the graphic organizer. They will also be given laws instead of coming up with
their own for the Independent aspect of the lesson, and will be expected to draw
pictures that accompany each law.

ELL Student #2 (Expanding): The student will only be expected to write at

least two laws in each circle, instead of coming up with laws that pertain to two
or more communities as well. They will be encouraged to use a highlighter to
indicate any laws they come up with that they notice can fit into two or more
types of communities, but this is not required.

Enrichment
 N/A

REFLECTION  What did the students enjoy the most during this lesson?
 Were the students engaged throughout the entire lesson?
 What could have been changed to make the lesson run more smoothly?
 Were the ELL students’ accommodations and modifications appropriate,
yet challenging enough?

WIDA can-do descriptors and connection

Student #1 (Emerging Stage):

3.2 Listening
2.9 Speaking
2.4 Reading
1.9 Writing

As this student’s Writing score for Key Use of Explain is Level 1, which states that they can “list and
illustrate ideas,” they will likely be unable to create a written explanation of why the laws that they are
provided with are beneficial to a community. However, their WIDA score for Key Use of Explain –
Speaking – Level 2 indicates that they are able to “describe familiar phenomena in words or phrases.”
Following this description, a student with a Speaking score of 2.4 would be able to give a concise verbal
explanation of a concrete concept. Based off of their WIDA scores for both Speaking and Writing, the
student would have more success giving a verbal explanation to a teacher or peer as opposed to writing it
down on paper. This also relates to Key Use of Recount – Speaking – Level 3, which states that they can
“state information from personal or school-related experiences,” as the explanations for their laws will
come from their own reflections and will likely relate to their own experiences. As this is a level three
standard and this student’s speaking score is currently 2.9, it provides a bit of a challenge as well, without
being too far out of their ability range.

Also, as their WIDA Writing score for Key Use of Explain indicates that they can “illustrate facts,” the
adaptation of drawing a picture of each law instead of writing it in a sentence format was used. This falls
under the category of writing while remaining in the student’s ability level. Finally, as the student’s WIDA
score for Reading under Key Use of Explain states that they can “interpret images, illustrations, and
graphics” and “identify elements of expository texts in illustrated texts,” they will be given basic sentence
strips that are accompanied by pictures. The illustrations will support them in determining the meaning
of each law in order to sort it into the proper column. As their Writing score is still level one and they can
likely only list ideas and “state facts associated with images,” it would be inappropriate for them to create
the poster in the overall objective, but drawing pictures on the poster, along with giving the verbal
explanations as described above, allow them to participate in the activity in a way that meets their ability
level.
Student #2 (Expanding Stage):

4.8 Listening
4.8 Speaking
4.4 Reading
4.6 Writing

This student’s WIDA scores are all in the expanding stage, so they are capable of following the original
lesson plan more closely, with some modifications. As their WIDA score for Key Use of Explain in Writing
states that they can “relate details” and their Writing score for Key Use of Argue claims that they are able
to “support main ideas” and “provide evidence to support claims,” they should be able to write down
their own examples of laws and explain their reasoning with little trouble on the poster, as this involves
simple, several-sentence details.

Also, as their Reading score under Key Use of Argue states, this student will be able to “sort content
related information according to specific categories.” Looking at this along with their Writing score in Key
Use of Explain, which has surpassed level three’s description of “stating ideas about content-related
topics,” they will be able to write out laws in each separate area of the Venn Diagram that correlates to
that specific community, as they are capable of coming up with their own ideas and writing them
sufficiently. However, as their Writing score in Key Use of Argue has not yet reached the ability to
“compare and contrast important points and details,” it will likely be too difficult for this student to
complete the full Venn Diagram, which includes determining which laws fit into two or more
communities. In order to make the assignment more concrete and fit their WIDA scores, the Venn
Diagram was changed to a graphic organizer with three separate circles, in order to prevent overlapping
laws.